Game changes - Announcements

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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:42 am

New clothing is available. They are mostly dresses: denim jumper dress, short-sleeved denim dress, short wool dress, long-sleeved sweater dress, short strapless silk dress, strapless leather dress, short leather dress,
but also: short cotton cloak, cotton jacket, cotton knickers, silk briefs, high-heeled leather shoes and wedge sandals.
Some are based on this suggestion, and all of them are designed and developed by Seko.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Fri Nov 01, 2013 6:31 pm

Ok, it's done.

What's that?
When you left-click on name then, instead of going to character description page, it shows short description of character: location, project, health and tiredness.
It's also possible to see character description, inventory and clothes and change its name and additional private description.
When you click on whisper button then character is added to bookmarks above text area. You can select receiver of message by clicking the right button.
Big/small text area selection has disappeared. Instead of that, text area grows when you write more text.
When you click on character name with middle mouse button (if you have it ;]), then character description page is opened in a new tab, just like it was in the past.
If you don't like new feature, then you can disable it on settings->interface page->Javascript on events page:
- extended - everything, including things added now
- basic - just textarea autogrow and event autorefresh
- disabled - no js, it will work better than it idd

It's a major change, so it will probably take you some time to get used to it, but I hope it will make playing more comfortable ;)
Happy playing!
GreeK
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Sun Nov 10, 2013 1:13 am

We are doing some maintenance work on game database. It takes much more time than I've expected. I think everything goes alright, but I can't say exactly when it'll be finished.

Thanks for your patience.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Sun Nov 10, 2013 3:12 am

Took some time, but finally it's done.

I hope you'll not see any changes! :D
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Thu Dec 26, 2013 7:18 pm

Now we have weather in the game. It includes: weather in every location (including wind), season cycle and climates for different areas.

Weather changes once per day. It's likely that weather in locations close to each other have the same weather and season.
Season takes approximately 20 days (but can be a bit shorter or longer). Your characters are allowed to know what's length of season.
Different parts of the world have different seasons.
Different areas can have different climates (which affects weather in certain seasons), but most of the world has temperate climate.

IMPORTANT! Currently weather has no influence on game mechanics, that is sailing speed etc. Now it's just for role-playing.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Sun Dec 29, 2013 3:48 pm

Hello!
We have new clothes in the game, inspired by real-life Indian dressing: embroidered silk crop top, silk crop top, silk head scarf, silk kurta, silk sherwani. They are all developed and created by Seko. Thanks, Seko!

By the way, please prepare for introduction of radio and furniture disassembling, which will be done today. It was already announced in april and august (if I remember correctly) so I hope it's not a big surprise :)
Please be also prepared for changes regarding stomachs. Its capacity is FINALLY going to be reduced (which was planned just after introducing it to the game, but some temporary things become permanent :D). It will happen quite soon, but certainly not in the next few days. If the change can seriously affect your gameplay, please contact us by support form or email.

And another thing. It will soon become possible to pull objects and people from buildings without going inside. It's to allow getting access to overcrowded buildings/vehicles without staff's intervention. Its implementation will be announced again with more details before it will happen, cause it's not ready yet.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Thu Jan 02, 2014 9:37 pm

The following winter clothes are now manufacturable: leather ushanka, long-sleeved wool tunic, fur booties, wool lined boots, padded cotton jacket, padded hemp jacket, fur-lined leather gloves. Hope they'll be a help in role-playing for those characters who already experienced our cold winter. ;)
They were suggested and implemented by SekoETC. Thanks!


Hello, another update today.
We've just introduced two new resources:
* bone ash - made of small or large bones in kiln or small kiln
* bone china clay - made of bone ash, clay and stone on a stone table
Information about both of them can be found in the wiki. They are used to produce bone chinaware: bone china teapot, bone china cup, bone china mug, bone china plate, bone china bowl. It's quite likely there will be more of them in the coming future.


And another change today!
Mass production is now possible. It's possible to select how many objects you want to produce (1 up to 8) on build confirmation page. It works for most of normal objects (everything but buildings, vehicles, unique or named objects). I hope it will make buttons production less frustrating ;)
If you think there's some type of object for which mass production should be impossible, while it is - please report it to us using support form or email, because constructing something like that can be dangerous ;D And I'm not completely infallible :(


Today was a good day for adding new stuff :D
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Sun Jan 12, 2014 6:18 pm

Pulling from buildings and vehicles
Starting tomorrow, It'll probably become possible to pull objects and people from building and vehicles. And the opposite - from outside to building/vehicle we are in.
It's to minimize usage of barricading in buildings exploit, but also solve the problem of rickshaws with a body inside.

How will it work?

Image

There will be a new pulling icon. Clicking it will start pulling random portable object whose weight is larger than 0. If there's no such object, then a random person will be pulled.
Beginning pulling doesn't require any additional confirmation. It's to make pulling multiple objects easier. It's impossible to know what will be pulled until we'll try, so it's not possible to "scan" buildings without going inside. Starting such dragging will create a public event:
4197-0.26: You see a brand new iron shield being pulled to unnamed location, coming from Hehehe.
4197-0.26: You see a man in his twenties start pulling from Hehehe.

So if you immediately complete dragging, then everyone will see two events.

People inside will see something like:
observer wrote:4197-0.26: You see a brand new iron shield being pulled from Hehehe to unnamed location. (a man in his twenties)

Everything's similar when we pull from outside.

Image

Of course, when we pull something from building Hehehe, then we can get only things from this building. No object in any of its extensions can be reached.

If there are resources in the building, then character won't try to drag everything, but will get as much as can drag alone (excluding a wheelbarrow bonus).

To pull anything, building must be open or we must have a key.


* * *


Stomach capacity will probably be reduced tomorrow. Its capacity will be reduced by half (to 4000 grams).
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Tue Jan 21, 2014 9:43 pm

XSS security - note validation
It took me MUCH time, but now we have a new "fature".
New note validation system is ready. Why was it introduced? What does it mean for players?
It's a system which performs html code validation when editing a note. It's done to make sure the note sticks to the standards and is safe for other players to view on their device.
The system intends to provide better security against cross-site-scripting (XSS) attacks, which in some circumstances can result in somebody getting your account credentials, session data or other interesting stuff.
We already had some protection against such attacks, but we know it became possible to bypass it (bad protection = no protection), so much had to be fixed manually by myself.
It is very important - this change affects only notes which are created or edited after the system change. None of the currently existing notes was changed, even if they were extremely incorrect.
One of the reasons why it took me months, was the intention of making the transition as easy as possible. So it's possible to see validated and corrected html source after requesting a preview, but before accepting it, as well as see changes done by validator (as a fine-grained diff). This way you can see what was wrong and you can correct it in the way you like, if you don't like validator's solution.
Correcting invalid tag structure is a side effect of ensuring safety. I've tested it on some notes and most of them passed it completely uhnarmed. Just a few are so bad that they can't be fixed in any automated way. It may be a good chance to fix them manually, with the help of the program.
If you leave "diff" unchecked and do preview, then the browser will send an ajax request to the server and in response you'll see a preview of the note after validation, which looks EXACTLY the same as when reading the note. It's better than old javascript-based preview emulation, because now preview doesn't look similar, it is EXACTLY the same as looking at a note after saving it.
If you check "diff" and request a preview, you'll see full char-by-char report of differences between original and validated note contents. It prints pieces removed by validator (things which are dangerous or not comply to html standard) on red background, while things added by validator are are marked with green. This way you can easily notice what actually happened.
If you try to edit your old note and preview shows there are lots of changes done by validator which you think are incorrect - don't save it and contact support. You'll most likely receive an answer that everything is ok and your old code was bad, but maybe it'll be one of situations where its the game code that causes problems ;)

* * *

Q: I want to create a complicated note. What else can be important?
A: It's a more tricky part.
Some of common errors, which I've noticed when testing popular in-game notes:
- having <div> inside of <a> - it should be swapped
- having <div> inside of <span> or <p> - span is for text span, p is for paragraph, they can't be outside a div
- it was a surprise for me, "alt" for <img> tags is obligatory
- unclosed or duplicated tags are very common
Good thing is that most of the notes are almost ok and look the same after validation, even if amount of changes is HUGE. It won't work only for notes which are completely against html 4.01 transitional specification, which itself allows much more than should be allowed :P but I kept it for backward-compatibility. For example "align" html attribute is accepted by spec, but you should use corresponding CSS style whenever possible. It won't be ok to disallow that to you when Cantr html source still has lots of that crap ;)

Atypical design of Cantr notes requires a few other rules:
- only situation when <pre></pre> tags are allowed and secure: </pre> tag at the beginning of the note, <pre> tag at the end. It's rather tricky, but many people know it already. Use it only if you want to get rid of default newline characters supplied by Cantr. If you do it the other way, then you do it at own risk. If you need <pre> anywhere else, then I suggest to use <div style="white-space:pre-wrap"></div> instead. It does more or less the same (except setting monospace font) and allows other html tags inside.
- if you need your own cascading style sheet (CSS), then you should specify it at the beginning of the note. It should be defined by: '<style type="text/css">' and ended with '</style>'. IT MUST EXACTLY MATCH THIS PATTERN. Otherwise whole of your CSS will be completely removed.
- CSS definitions are validated separately. CSS classes and IDs can contain only alphanumeric characters, "_" and "-". They should start with a letter.
- validator is quite liberal when it goes to CSS properties. For example it allows "display:none" or "position:absolute". But you shouldn't assume that everything that passes validation is automagically ok. Notes should still be treated as something (usually) made of paper of other "static" material. For example ":hover" CSS selector should be generally avoided, unless it fits well somewhere. If you have any doubts - ask GAB :)
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:42 am

Maintenance break
Database maintenance downtime.

I'll post when half of work will be done.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Fri Jan 31, 2014 11:54 am

Helf of work is already done.

EDIT: Finished.

Please check if notes work correct.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Sat Feb 01, 2014 8:28 pm

Domestication - birds
It's now possible to tame some wild bird species.
Black goose, chicken, turkey, emu, ostrich, penguin, partridge, grey partridge, copper pheasant, golden pheasant, pheasant, silver pheasant, peacock, rainbow lorrikeet, macaw, cockatoo, toucan, crow, do-do, eagle, great horned own, falcon, golden eagle, gyrfalcon, harpy eagle, hawk, osprey, owl, peregrine falcon, pigeon, raven, red-tailed hawk, sparrowhawk and white-tailed hawk are now domesticable. Most of them give eggs, which can be collected. Usually you need quite many birds to maintain reasonable egg production.
Parrots, eagles and falcons are not good for egg production, don't say I didn't warn you. ;)
These animals also give small amounts of feathers every day.
Some animals, after adopting them, can be used for hunting and fighting (technically something like a normal weapon). They are rather weak when attacking humans, but efficient against other animals. Attack values will be posted on wiki soon.

How to guess what does certain bird eat?
- if animal requires hay to tame, then it's 100% sure that can eat hay (but it's unknown if eats vegetable or meat feed)
- if animal requires vegetable feed to tame, then it's 100% sure that doesn't eat hay and eats vegetables
- if animal requires meat feed to tame, then it's 100% sure that eats just meat feed
The rest of birds will become domesticable quite soon.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Fri Feb 07, 2014 11:57 pm

Unsubscribe lock
Hello. We have a new feature - unsub lock.
Across the years we got reports that some players, who have accessed Cantr using public hot-spots etc., have lost their accounts because somebody else got their credentials and unsubscribed them. We always try to help, but usually it was too late to revive the lost characters.
That's why I've introduced additional 1 day lock, which prevents immediate deletion of account.
Now when you click bad green [X] on the bottom of player page, you just start 1-day countdown. You can't remove account yet. After waiting for one day you have two days to enter unsub page, fill in the exit survey and confirm deletion of the account.
If you don't like this new feature, then you can disable it in account->profile settings. But if you do, we won't help you in case of such trouble.
PS. For all curious: disabling countdown and then immediately removing account is not possible.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Thu Feb 13, 2014 2:02 pm

Voluntary death from old age
Since today, you can decide to cause a heart attack of your old character. It's a functionality based on accepted suggestion "Voluntary death from old age".
There's a new tab on character settings page, called "Death from old age". There you can read a bit about the system and, if your char is old enough, you can check a checkbox and click "forward" to start a countdown. After waiting for one day it's possible to confirm death (you'll easily notice how). It means permanent death of your character caused by a heart attack. If you don't confirm it for two days, then the counter is reset, so it works just like unsub lock.
It's hard to estimate how many people will decide to use it, so current age threshold is very high (90 years) and will be lowered later, to avoid too many deaths at the same time.
Be careful when testing it :D
EDIT: This has nothing to do with forced death from old age, which is unlikely to ever happen.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’
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Re: Game changes - Announcements

Postby Greek » Mon Feb 17, 2014 1:58 am

Vehicle disassembling
It's now possible to disassemble three vehicle types: small wooden cart, longboat and dinghy.
To do so, you need to have certain tools (axe or wooden axe for these three) and have absolutely nobody and nothing inside (no projects, no people, no docked ships, no objects, which also means no lock). This requirement is also checked each hour (but failing to fulfill the requirement is not yet not indicated by "x" instead of "√" on projects page!).
When disassembling project is finished, you get part of resources (default 50%, but may vary by type) and objects (default 100%, but may vary by type) back.
These three are experimental (but already well tested, so I don't expect bugs) to make sure everything's ok with vehicle disassembling and more will be available soon.
‘Never! Run before you walk! Fly before you crawl! Keep moving forward! You think we should try to get a decent mail service in the city. I think we should try to send letters anywhere in the world! Because if we fail, I’d rather fail really hugely’

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