Panumbra Newsletter #8 March 12th 1998

No. 8, March 12th, 1998, Thursday

Dear Panumbra newsletter readers,

I apologize for the long silence since the last newsletter... we have been very busy around here. Here is what we have been doing:

1. Version 2.1. After busy weeks of patching the old demo and designing the new version, we finally started coding version 2.1. The reason there were no newsletters in the last month is that design is my primary responsibility, and I did not have time to write the newsletter. But the design is completed now and we are coding the new server and the client. The release date of version 2.1 looks now end of April. For those who don't know, the major changes are: items can be found and used, but buying, selling and gold is not in the game yet. Items in the game will include weapons, armor, potions, magical items. Text messaging is improved, you can now create and subscribe to channels, and have private conversations easily. We will have caves, with cave drakes and other new monsters, two new player races, and skills/spells affecting whole areas instead of individual targets. But version 2.1 is still a demo, we will not have an official beta until version 3 is released.

2. Demo bugs and support. We improved server stability in the past weeks. We fixed the bugs with the poison, the vast majority of the lock-up bugs and server crashes. There are still problems, but right now we stopped supporting the current version so that we can concentrate on the upcoming new version. Experience has shown that every time we release a new patch, there will be bugs in the fix which slip through our internal testing, because of the complexity of the system (UO users know what I am talking about). Therefore we decided to limit the number of new releases, and batch up fixes into larger patches, which can be better tested. The next time we will release fixes will be in version 2.1, unless there are server crashes.

3. Connection problems. We had various events lately which affected the connection to our servers. We had scheduled and unscheduled power outages, a snow blizzard, and our ISP's routers were having stability problems. We got word from our ISP that they are planning to replace those routers soon, so hopefully connections will be better soon. We also ordered a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) so that our servers can survive short power outages.

4. Helpers group. The Paladins of Panumbra is a group of players who are dedicated to help newbies and other players in the game. The Paladins (or shortly, Pals) will have scheduled hours and assigned responsibilities in the game in the long run. Currently, since the game is still in demo stages and there are not many people on-line at the same time, the group is working on organization and important issues like community standards, a "jump start" page for newbies, Pals responsibilities, etc. Pals will appear in the game with names beginning with a PAL- prefix, and will answer questions on the newbie channel initially. Their responsibilities will gradually increase as more features are in the game and more people are on regularly. There are currently 14 Paladins of Panumbra.

5. Web site changes. The website has been restructured a little with the intention of making it easier to use. We made a bug report form, which is now available from the main menu bar displayed on every page. You can now subscribe to our newsletter by simply pressing a button on the site. I restructured the main page so that it is easier to navigate. I also updated the screenshots, now they are actually from the demo... The player's corner has two new members: BranDragon's Forbidding site and Og's Tales. Klank has a lots of new maps on his site, check it out!
These are the news today. Thank you for reading our newsletter and bearing with us!

Regards

Marta Gabnai
and the Panumbra development team