STICKY: Small Updates and Tweaks

[Mooncalf]

Just a heads up: from now on, in-game cheating offences will be met with much harsher punishment. Instead of losing 500-1000 exp for a first offence, you will lose 1 level (unless you come to me and tell me yourself). For a second offence you get 1 month in the shadow realm, or worse, depending on the severity of your actions. Repeat in game cheating will quickly lead to a perma ban.

People have been abusing the system way too much recently, and I'm done with it. No excuses.

[Mooncalf]

I've coded a punishment script that isn't automatic, but it punishes people at the touch of a button, and keeps a record of how many punishment "points" they have. Basically, I feed in the name, and select the severity of the in game transgression (small can also be used for times when the offence is admitted, or when it's a very clear accident), and the system calculates how many times they have cheated.

Each normal offence is worth 1 point, and each "small" offence is worth 0.5. The points stack up so that you can either get 1000 exp penalty (first small offence), 3000 exp penalty (replacing level lost, for first normal offence, or two smaller offences), or a ban (for 2+ normal offences, sent to "hell" where you stay until the code automatically pulls you out after 1, 3 or 12 months, depending on your total punishment points).

Those are just the details, you don't need to worry yourself too much with that. All you need to know is that the system will now keep track of the number of times you have been punished, and will automatically reduce your punishment totals, after 6 months have passed since your last punishment.

It's also a lot easier and quicker for me too, now.

[Mooncalf]

Update to the rules, regarding retaliation with alts:

"You are allowed to retaliate with both of your characters if both are directly attacked by the same character. For example, if Bob attacked both of your characters (we'll call them Mary and Sue), then and only then would Mary and Sue be allowed to attack Bob. If Bob did not physically and directly attack both Mary and Sue first, then you can't hit Bob with both of your characters."

I'm planning on hard coding this whole system into the game, so that it will stop you from hitting with both alts (presumably accidentally), until the target hits both of your characters first. But this might take some time. I'm also going to code the game to stop transfers, healing and more, from the same IP to the same target.

There may be some issues in future where people use alts to goad attacks from the same target, to enable their retaliation. There might also be some issues where people verbally attack one of your alts, while physically attacking your other. In the event of either of those examples, the mods will look into it to see if retaliation should be permitted, or -- in the worst case scenario -- there might be a case of crossing against the person.

[Mooncalf]

I've added a few new items to gift shops (24, 14, world), due to popular demand.

Puppies, kittens, fluffy handcuffs, t-shirts, furniture, and super expensive diamond necklaces are now available. Also, gifts for your enemies (or for those you wish to play a joke on) can now be purchased in the gift shop. These include dead animals, boxes of maggots, severed heads and black roses (maybe not a joke or a mark of death, if you're a goth).

[Mooncalf]

Decoy is now limited to 5 illusions at any one time (per character). If you cast a 6th illusion, then the oldest one vanishes.

[Mooncalf]

Got the bug forum down from 7 pages to less than 2 today. Sorry to those 18 people who have PMed me in the last 24 hours, but I'm away tomorrow. If you PMed me about bugs, suggestions, questions, crossing, or similar, then there are forums and mods (for crossing / questions) who deal with those things.

Thanks for your patience during the bug fixing. Now I'm nearly up to date on that, I will be updating B&E next.

[Mooncalf]

There was an issue with gangsters who were spawning at an unreachable area. They have been fixed, so if you were wondering why there has been a lack of gangsters recently, that's why, and there should be much more available again, in certain run down buildings.

[Mooncalf]

New houses, lairs, apartments, and dwellings added. Only a limited amount of each. However, I'll be adding a skyscraper soon which automatically adds a new floor every time all the apartments on one floor get bought up, so I won't have to spend my time adding new lairs constantly.

Sorry for the delay in PM replies and bug fixing. Busy in real life, as always.

[Mooncalf]

Breaking and Entering now requires your stealing level to be at least 2 times the building security level. This is so that only thieves with very high skills levels will be able to make it into the super profitable buildings. The idea is to make the scale of profit similar to pick-pocketing and hacking (skills requiring more investment or skills will naturally give more money).

Here's the requirements for each building level:
Security 0 = Thievery 1 or over
Security 1 = Thievery 2 or over
Security 2 = Thievery 4 or over
Security 3 = Thievery 6 or over
Security 4 = Thievery 8 or over
Security 5 = Thievery 10 or over

and so on.

[Mooncalf]

The bounty list is now showing the top 7 bounty offenders, instead of all of those with over 1500 bounty. You wont show up on the list at all if you get it under a certain amount, but until we have more members, I thought it was a good idea to make it so that you can't just sit under 1500 and stay safe; you have to make sure than you're lower than everyone else, if you want to stay safe. This will also help balance the city alert level a bit better.

When we have more members, I will tweak this again.