2024-05-31
Pizza is a popular meal of choice. With growing demand, Leander is looking to hire reliable workers to transport his hot and delicious cuisine to patrons. Couriers with reputations of on-time deliveries are being recognized for their work ethic.
Some adventurers may be distressed and feel that their quest for the title of "Ultimate Collector" is in vain. Well fret no more, as Balduin is offering a ray of hope. Requests to bring him a different item are now accepted afer some time has passed.
Speaking of weapons, some creatures have once again taken up arms. For example the angel and dark angel have new swords.
Last but not least: We released an official Android App, which is available in the download section of our website or on F-Droid.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2024-03-27
In this release we focused on the user interface:
In the past different types of items (e. g. shields and armor) had different implied defense multipliers. But this was confusing, so all items show their real defense level directly now.
In addition to the classic Java based client, Stendhal is now fully playable in all major web browsers on both desktop and mobile devices.
A new chat options dialog simplifies interactions with NPCs. Interactive objects are highlighted by an action indicator icon.
There are massive improvements to touch-support including drag & drop fixes and an optional on‑screen joystick and d‑pad.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2023-12-25
After long and hard discussions, the Kirdneh City community has installed two city-owned bank chests. Furthermore negotiations with Fado City and Wizard's Bank have been successful for them to honor transaction with the new branch.
City representatives believe the expansion will not only prosper local citizens, but will benefit travelers from both near and distant regions.
Speaking of prospering trade: The gardener's association has decided to label their bags of seeds to tell them apart easily.
Having felt the outpour of support from adventurers willing to fight for Semos, Mayor Sakhs has proclaimed he wants to reward new achievements to those, that have shown extreme patience, endurance, and strength. Not to be outdone, Mayor Chalmers immediately ordered that Ados introduces a similar new reward. Other provinces might following suit.
Touch support has been improved in the new client. Most notable there are experimental features for an on-screen joystick and buttons to simplify chatting with NPCs.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2023-10-06
Kirla is famous for being able to create pictures from your memories. She will have a booth at the upcoming Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks. Due to popular demand, she has decided to offer copies of her memory-pictures to take home.
Speaking of memories. Do you have trouble remembering which person sells or buys which item? You can now check the website.
There are also two new achievements Fruit Salad and Sowing Seeds: Do you know how many different plants you sowed or harvested?
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2023-06-12
Update: The issues have been fixed.
We just published an update to the Java client, to work around the issue with stendhalgame.org not responding to DNS queries. The Java client 1.43.1 will resolve the name "stendhalgame.org" internally. Therefore you can play normally despite the outage.
There are no news on the root issue. The website and webclient are still offline.
2023-06-12
Update: The issues have been fixed.
Our domain stendhalgame.org is unresolvable at the moment. While we investigate the issue, you can use the Java client to connect to "arianne-project.org" to access the same server.
2023-03-09
Would you like to show off a powerful weapon or a strong shield? Or would you like to have a fancy umbrella? Talk to Gwen at the new Accessory Shop in Deniran City.
An old and well known shop in Nalwor offers beautiful flowers. But restocking has become an issue. Perhaps you can help? But be careful, the elves might not be friendly to you.
Speaking of dangers, there are some minor changes to the fighting rules which you can explore at the Deathmatch arena in Ados. You can even unlock one of the new achievements there.
In other news: The webclient saw significant improvements such as a new trade dialog, a simple group panel and weather.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2022-12-25
Elias Breland is getting more and more worried about his grandson, who has gone missing. If you have some time to spare and some detective skills, please try to solve this mystery.
It’s the end of the year. And that means Christmas in some regions of the world. But even if you do not celebrate Christmas, a larger bag might come in handy.
Speaking of handy items, Giles is happy to braid ropes for you.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2022-10-25
We released a server-only Bugfix to restore proper defense of creatures.
Background: Because of this bug, the logic to increase def_xp of players was applied to creatures as well.
The def_level of creatures, however, is statically assigned, they don’t have any def_xp. But the broken code incremented the non existing def_xp from 0 to 1. This in turn triggered a calculation of the def_level and overwrote it with 10 (the def_level for def_xp=1).
2022-10-24
This announcement is outdated. It turned out that we introduced a simple bug which has been fixed in the mean time.
The intention of the recent release Encouraging Exploration was to make it more interesting to explore all areas of the world. Among other changes, we modified the combat system to support teaming up of stronger and weaker players. In reality, however, this change had the opposite effect because players got significantly stronger on their own: For example, a Deathmatch can now be completed easily by a lone hero.
We reverted the changes to the combat system as a quick temporary solution. We will take our time to develop a proper solution in one of the next releases.
PS: You still gain attack-experiences for every hit, you land against creatures. This is true even when an another player protects you from getting hurt. We did not revert that change.
Did you know? We have a public development chat.
2022-10-22
Stendhal has a rich and diverse world with many places to explore, different types of monsters to fight and items to discover. It is now more beneficial to use weapons and armor that is appropriate for your level instead of aiming for the best weapon in the game at a low level.
Furthermore you can now gain attack-experiences for every hit you land against a creature, even if another player protects you from getting hurt.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2022-04-13
A mysterious person showed up in Deniran City and claims to be an inspector of fences, or something. The king has started to buy royal equipment.
Marking of empty scrolls requires less effort now and conversations became sticky.
We still recommand to use the classic downloadable client written in Java, but experimental webclient saw significant improvements in this release.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2022-03-07
Are you looking for a larger keyring? Ari can help. Unfortunately he is in big trouble: He has lost his engagement ring at the beach. Can you fix the situation? Or will the marriage be doomed?
Thanatos has started an advertisement campaign for the Ados Deathmatch to draw more heroes into the fights.
If you prefer fighting animals for food instead, keep the remaining bits. Emeric is interested in them. Last but not least, Balduin will provide you with a replacement l/r hand sword. For a price.
Speaking of Deathmatch and trading: There are new achievements.
The experimental web-client uses the same optimized algorithms for drawing the world and smooth movement as the classic client does. Therefore it is significantly more responsive.
Furthermore it shows floaters for damage, health gains and awarded XP. All of this was possible by rewriting old-style JavaScript (pre-dating es2015) to TypeScript.
Please see the complete change log for further details.
2022-01-08
Strong monsters wanted to feel really important, so they decided to carry more items around. Feeling all posh, lots of creatures have polished their appearance. And even some items got cleaned up.
While all this was going on, some animals suddenly realized, that you cannot eat money. But fear not, there are other ways to make good use of animals.
The population in Deniran has increased. While some new citizens are not very talkative, an old man has stories to share.
See the complete change log for this release.
Note for developers: After this release, an installation of Node.js will be required to build Stendhal from Source Code.
Our engine Marauroa adds support for compilation on Java 17 with release 3.9.7. Therefore support for Java version 6 and 7 has been dropped.
Database commands can now be prioritized in order to prefer operations, that are required by user interactions, over statistics.
KeepALive messages are now supported during login phase, in order to allow players to stay in the queue, when the database is extremely busy.
2021-10-03
So much space an the new Deniran Air And Space Museum. Too bad the museum has a no-refund policy. But if you want to admire space, it might be worth the trip anyway.
In other news, construction have started for the Mine Town Revival Weeks festival north of Semos. But supplies are scarce, so help with logistics is appreciated.
There are more changes, which you can find in the change log for this release.
2021-07-04
Please have a look at the information about server compromise.
When people of Faiumoni woke up on July, 4th they felt something was odd. The scientists of the royal academy of astronomy later confirmed their feelings. From their regular observations of the stars they derived that somehow several days had gone missing.
For what is known, people went to bed on July, 2nd only to wake up two days later with great thirst and hunger. So far there is nobody to be found who can tell what happened during that missing time. The reason for this incident is yet unknown.
Even the famous psychic Lovena is not able shed any light on things. All she is able to tell is that she senses the letter "t".
People are concerned. Hopefully, this is not an omen for even worse and stranger things happening tonight.
2020-12-24
Happy holidays and a healthy new year from the Stendhal Community!
Keep your eyes open and you might meet Santa for a nice present and a pointy hat.
2020-10-10
Oh no, the construction of this years Mine Town Revival Weeks is running late.
But with a bit of combined help by players, the festival will still be able to take place.
We have a Discord server now.
There are more changes, which you can find in the change log for this release.
2020-07-15
When you are in the arena, fighting for life and death, help from a friend is very much appreciated. Starting with Stendhal 1.35 such heroic deeds will be rewarded with an achievement.
But not everything is a matter of life and death: Stendhal is a spare time project, which completely depends on contributions by volunteers. While it is easy to credit contributors of program code and art, it is more difficult to keep track of other kinds of contributions such as: informal bug reports and ideas, help with testing and community building. In the past, we felt overwhelmed by that task and feared that people might get upset for being forgotten. We even added a little easter egg on the login screen: The “credits” button will lead to a list of NPCs.
Now, on Stendhal’s 15th anniversary, we want to credit every contributor properly. At this point, the list is just a start, listing only 219 contributors, and some of them with a placeholder image only. We need your help to complete it.
In other news, we significantly improved interactions with the database. This should completely eliminate delays on login because all database actions that have an impact on logins are prioritized and moved to the front of the queue.
There are more changes, which you can find in the change log for this release.
2020-05-02
Don't have a friend to train with? The assassins have built a hidden dojo to train their warriors.
A wandering adventurer is seeking to compile information on all the creatures found in the world. If you hear whistling, be sure to investigate. That could be his cheerful tune.
Pawn some of your old items in Deniran. Sawyer has set up shop for business with the aid of his assistant.
Tired of the same old outfits? Meet Pierre for some new flair to show off. Super heroes and cute and cuddly are his theme.
If you are curious about Atlantis, look for Ryla. She is tasked with introducing visitors to the hidden world.
Baby pegasi have grown shy due to the increasing number of poachers.
See the complete change log for this release.
2020-04-24
Stendhal version 1.33.1 is a server only release. It fixes an exploit around the drop and selling of kokuda (Patch).Some boss creatures have the ability to drop a certain item, which may be used in the quest. The original creature to make use of this feature was the green dragon guarding a key in the dungeon below Orril Castle. In order to prevent players from getting lots of useless keys, the drop will only happen, if the player does not have the same key in his or her inventory already. The same logic was used for the quest related item "kokuda" by the Minotaur King. Recently an NPC called Wanda was introcuded who bought such an item for a sizeable amount of money.
This release also includes a tiny fix to the webclient buddy list.
2020-02-28
Rumors about the lost city of Atlantis have surfaced. It’s time to go on an a search. You will encounter strange and beautiful places on your journey. Brush up your skills to complete the latest new achievements
If you decide to take a lot of money on your search, you should pay a visit to the tannery in Deniran. The owner will help you with keeping it safe.
A note from the development team
Although it has only been six weeks since the last release, this one is full of new content: New zones in the Deniran region and the region of Atlantis. Fourteen new achievements. Twenty-four new creatures. Eight new items and a complete new armor set. Two new quests and two new NPCs.
The webclient saw major improvements aswell. For example it supports long touch to open the context menu. It requires more work until it will reach feature parity with the classic client. But this release is a huge step forward.
And most important: Have fun! If you like, join us in the development chat.
See the complete change log for this release.
2020-01-18
Enjoy a treatment of your face. You can now pick your eyes and mouth as well as several types of masks and glasses. Don’t like the color of a feature? No problem, tint it. The photo on the right side shows only a very small selection of the new possibilities
Clean your eyes and ears. There are many new sounds and improved graphics all over the world.
But perhaps don’t listen too carefully when in a hotel in Fado. A grumpy guest might demand a decent meal and make quite a scene about it. On the plus side, there are many new food and other items. Did you get a note from Klass? It might be a good idea to follow up on it for a handy reward.
See the complete change log for this release.
2019-10-18
Each year, the citizens of Semos region celebrate the Mine Town Revival Weeks. It is a fair to remember the old and now deserted Mine Town north of Semos city.
Join the party, have a drink or something to eat. Play a game or two! Or just hang out to chat. Whatever you do, have fun.
2019-09-26
Deniran, the capital city has become in vogue lately. Lots of new shop keepers have moved in:
Shop assistant Christina and chef Patrick plan on opening the bakery. Weapons dealer D J Smith, and port manager Fiete will take care of supplies for the army. Julia has started to get the library organized, while King Edward of Deniran is worried about tunnels below the city.
The new arrivals will need a little while to open their respective businesses. But Ermenegildy is all set up and ready to heal the wounded. A little girl called Marianne is in need for some eggs to help her mum.
Olmo loves it quite, so he did not move to the big capital city, but opened his smoking business in the forest near Fado instead.
Oh, and I almost forgot: Thanks to numerous reports from travelers, the map of the world has been updated.
Do you have ideas for new NPCs, quests? Want to create graphics? Or found a bug? Please let us know at our GitHub issue tracker. The developers added templates to make filling new issues easier.
See the complete change log for this release.
2019-07-09
Besides hanging out at Athor Beach and enjoying the fun of having summer the northern parts of Deniran have been opened up. Brave warriors can now start to explore the cool caves and seek some cool down in there. Some creatures and NPCs gained a new shape and recovered from the curse.
Ados sent an army batallion to protect the trade route to Deniran.
Do you have an idea of a NPC or shop to fill the place? Found a map issue? Want to write a quest? Please let us know on #arianne chat or open a ticket.
There were lots of smaller graphical improvements. Fences were fixed and interior decorations were improved.
See the complete change log for this release.
2019-02-01
The foundation of Deniran, the capital city, has been added to the world. It is still in early development, but you can already explore it west of Orril castle by the river.
Do you have an idea of a NPC or shop to fill the place? Found a map issue? Want to write a quest? Please let us know on #arianne chat or open a ticket.
The web client saw many improvements, including an outfit-dialog and a menu-button to easily access the most common commands.
Last but not least we worked around an issue in MySQL which caused trouble when Emojis were used. We added a stendhal-starter.exe file to make starting Stendhal more convenient on Microsoft Windows.
See the complete change log for this release.
2018-10-17
Marauroa 3.9.6 fixes a security bug which allowed an attacker to take over control of a foreign character. We would like to thank pepsz for the report.
On login, Marauroa verifies your credentials (typically username and password) and offers you a list of your characters. You select one of your characters to start the game.
At this point Marauroa checks whether your character is already in game. In this case, your old client is disconnected and ownership of the character object is transferred to your new client. Otherwise Marauroa loads your character from the database.
In the second case, Marauroa ensures, that the character you requested, belongs to your account. In the first case, however, Marauroa did not verify the account. This bug is exploitable with both the traditional Java client and the new web client.
2018-10-10
Mine Town Revival Weeks have just started! It’s the annual event to remember and celebrate the old miners' town north of Semos city.
As every year, you can play games, hang out or enjoy the food. As a special treat, Saskia and Liliana have opened a booth in Semos city to sell costumes.
Traditionally, Stendhal required you to download a Java client. But now you can play Stendhal directly from your browser without installing anything. The web client is still in heavy development, so you might want download the Java client. But please give the web client a try. What bugs can you find? Which missing features are important to you? Please let us know on Github or type
/supportin game.See the complete change log for this release.
2018-06-05
Due to another hit by the curse of vanishing shapes, we decided on a full overhaul of shapes based on new images from safer sources. Some shapes are still in a state of transition from the dots to a more natural form without details.
We like to give a special thanks to members of the OpenGameArt community who made their work available for games like Stendhal: Svetlana Kushnariova (Cabbit), diamonddmgirl, amaranthia, Angry Amish, artisticdude, bagzie, Barbara Rivera, bluecarrot16, Casper Nilsson, Charles Gabriel (Antifarea), Cobra Hubbard (BlueVortexGames), Crisisworks, Curt, Daniel Eddeland (daneeklu), danielmahon, DkuCook, Dominik Gmiterko (ienze), Fabzy, GrumpyDiamond, Hyptosis, isaiah658, Jetrel, Johann C, Kemono, Kevin Smith (TKZ Productions), Lanea Zimmerman (Sharm), lawnjelly, Leonard Pabin, LordNeo, Lori Angela Nagel (Jastiv), Michael Williams (BizmasterStudios), mold, Nila122, NoLogoGames, Rayane Félix (RayaneFLX), RedVoxel, Shepardskin, Sollision, Stephen Challener (Redshrike), Tuomo Untinen (Reemax), William Thompson, Wolthera van Hövell tot Westerflier (TheraHedwig), wulax, Xenodora, Yamilian, Yar, yolkati, Zachariah Husiar (Zabin), ZaPaper, ztn, and other communities: Daniel Cook, Firkin, Guido Bos, leangoro, johnny_automatic, leangoro, liftarn
The Arianne project would like to give special thanks to Svetlana Kushnariova (Cabbit) who created the base template sprites that are used throughout this release, and diamonddmgirl for her additions to the set. And finally, thank you to the Stendhal project members Kimmo Rundelin (kiheru), olonu, & Jordan Irwin (AntumDeluge) who put in extra hours of work to take on the huge task of creating & replacing sprite & tileset images.
On the good side this cure made it possible to change the skin color of player avatars.
Hell's overseers seemed to have a broken clock and threw people out of Hell much too fast... They should have fixed their timers and promised not to repeat those mistakes. It also might look a little bit odd that Hell is such a popular place. What are the conclusions on Faiumoni's citizens if they like Hell that much? ;)
Please remember: There are other interesting places like Adventure Island, Kikareukin or Dreamscape.
See the complete change log for this release.
2017-09-19
This version includes an update to Marauroa 3.9.5 which fixes an item duplication bug on multiple logins. We like to thank pepsz for the report.
The officials of hell got quite annoyed by seeing their home turn into a “hotspot” for tourists. Hell is already hot enough! Blatantly some tourists even bought ice swords to lighten Tomi’s tortures. Enough is enough! Be prepared to end up in the pit of hell, when you are caught before your time has come.
Some more of Stendhal's citizens and creatures regained their shape. For example Gashadokuro, Stone Golems and Chicken materialized again.
Please see the complete change log for this release.
We released Marauroa 3.9.5 with an important security fix.
It was possible to add a character multiple times to the world by logging in in parallel. Depending on the game, this may lead to item duplication or similar undesired effects.
We like to thank pepsz for the report of this issue.
2017-06-14
Stendhal's inhabitants started to advance to new projects. Together they approach new perspectives for the whole world of Stendhal!
Steps in advancement were taken in different areas of the world. Especially the city of Ados was busy. They hired a few more guards and opened a new city gate. These obviously good news seem to attract new people to Ados and its surroundings! Someone has spotted a new fisher hut. Will someone move there soon?
Hell became less hellish, with a path being widened to easen the torture of blocking.
Please see the complete change log for this release.
2017-04-16
Spring is coming. Beautiful flowers are growing in all colors. The citizen of Semos did a much overdue Spring cleaning and decorated their city for the Easter celebrations. According to rumors, a certain well known bunny has been spotted.
Happy Easter!
2017-03-10
Recently the world of Stendhal was hit by an evil curse: Despite a desperate battle, some creatures, animals and even people lost their shape and dissolved into sparkling dots.
Luckily the consequences of this curse seem to fade away slowly. Cows and Bulls, green and red dragons, ghosts, slimes and death. All of them have completely recovered.
Rumors are suggesting, however, that this is not just a matter of time passing. But the result of hard working heroes in another world.
The inhabitants of this world hope for more hard-working people to help shapeless creatures, animals or people to get back into shape!
Please see the complete change log for this release.
2017-02-05
The world of Stendhal was hit by a form-destroying curse. While Stendhal is stable now, it will take a lot of work in another world to undo the effects of this curse.
Join us at #arianne on Libera if you like to contribute to Stendhal.
It started slowly at first. Someone put up a sign in Semos city claiming that "the world is going to end". Well, most people did not think much about it; just a confused person probably. Someone else even answered with a philosophical question: "What did God do before he created the world?"
But then more and more strange reports came in: Gnome village was overrun by slime monsters and was begging for help. Snakes appeared near witches, despite them having given up their summon magic more than five years ago.
Some people still though about this as a practical joke. But the situation got worse by the minute. The next sign said: "Zombies at Semos walls, a death in bank! Oh, my god?!" Confidential reports included messages about a dangerous baby angel near Orril River and about something deadly happening to Stendhal Financial Sphere, most notable in Magic Bank. Zombie rats in Semos Dungeon and on the ship to Athor.
Panic sat in. This is insane! More reports came in about Skeletons, Demons, Zombies and other deathly creatures all over the world and even above the clouds. But there was hope: Slowly but surely courages adventures fought back at many small battles all over the world. When the message hit home, that Gnome Village was freed, the balance flipped and the good forces started their trip to win this war.
In an last desperate gasp, the powers of evil casted a dark curse: Many creatures, animals and even some people lost their form and dissolved to sparkling dots. The world of Stendhal is safe for now, thanks to the help of courages adventures. But the effects of the curse can only be undone by lots of work in another world.
2016-12-04
The year is coming to an end and the people are just starting to celebrate this time of the year.
Semos is nicely decorated for christmas. There are rumors out there telling Santa could be spotted soon.
The citizens of Semos have learned a new Christmas song: "O how joyfully". After "Snow Flake Little White Skirt" last year and "Oh Christmas Tree" the year before, is this the start of a tradition?
Imagine: No need to have an eraser at hand for book keeping of how many creatures were killed for your tasks. No erasing and new writing of kill counts anymore? Sounds good, yes? Luckily this imagination starts now to become true. The number of killed monks for the Kill Monks quest is noted with tally marks in your travel log. Isn't that way easier than before?
Please see the complete change log for additional changes.
2016-09-13
It's almost time to party! The annual Minetown Revival Weeks will start in early October. According to rumors, Kirla will join the festival with her own booth. She is famous for her ability to create pictures from your memories.
The citizen of Semos are still busy preparing the party. They are looking for a volunteer to help with this year’s paper chase. Will someone step up in time?
In other news: A trader called Mizuno has been spotted near Ados. He sells ice arrows for black pearls. They might come in handy, should you ever end up in hell.
Please see the complete change log for additional changes.
2016-04-13
Please download Stendhal again as there will be no automatic update to version 1.20. We accidentally uploaded our private code signing key to an Open Source repository on GitHub.
We take security very seriously, therefore the updater double checks every update by verifying the signature before installing it. With the second check not being trusted anymore, we decided to release an updater with a new set of keys.
Please note that this is only a "security in depth" measurement: The updater downloads code from trusted source only in the first place.
But the security of computers is not all, that is important: When you are diving under water, make sure that your scuba gear is safely attached. If you lose it, you might get into serious trouble.
On a good note: Harold will be much more friendly to customers by allowing them to prolong all their offers without having to cut through red tape.
When archers use their bow, it will not be very visible for a boost of confidence.
Please see the complete change log for additional changes.
2016-01-03
There will be an Arianne Development Meeting on Wednesday, the 6th of January at 20.00 server time (19.00 GMT) in #arianne, on irc.freenode.net. Web chat
- Sourceforge, Github, Travis
- Prepaing release of Marauroa 4.0
- Doing Sendhal releases
- (Stendhal Web Client)
More details and minutes are available on the Wiki page Arianne Development Meeting 2016-01-06
2015-12-09
There are legends and rumors about mysteries hidden in deep sea: Sunken ships and dangerous creatures. Does the Kraken really exist? Or was it just made up by drunken sailors? Find out yourself by going on a quest to explore the unknown.
But be careful! Good preparation before your diving trip is important. You may want to start by doing a scuba diving license.
Sometimes you don't have to wander far to discover interesting things. Cats for example have just learned that milk tastes really delicious.
Please see the complete change log for additional changes.
2015-08-18
Aerianna is a half elf girl who has travelled very far. She has been to the forests in the south, climbed the mountains in the north and even spend some time in the great desert in the south east. At the moment you can meet her at Ados market while you restock your supplies.
Inspired by the journey of this brave girl, the cartographers have added zone names to the world map. Saskia started to offer umbrellas in her Magic City boutique, so you don't get wet on your own journey.
Last but not least, Stendhal is now available on Github in addition to SourceForge. The Arianne project has moved to arianne-project.org as part of our efforts to improve the infrastructure.
Please see the complete change log for additional changes.
2015-08-16
Summary: Arianne has moved to arianne-project.org. Stendhal is available on GitHub, too, in addition to SourceForge.
Recently we did some improvements to the Arianne and Stendhal infrastructure. Arianne has been on SourceForge for 15 years now and over all these years SourceForge has offered great services and we will stay on SourceForge for the time being. But we are adding more redundancy.
Mirroring to GitHub
Arianne now exists as organisation on GitHub. And we already have created the Stendhal repository. Marauroa and other subprojects will follow.
For now, SourceForge remains the primary site, and Postman (ariannebot) will mirror any commits.
arianne-project.org
Another important step in improving availability is migrating arianne.sourceforge.net to arianne-project.org.
Using our own domains allows us to change to another hosting provider in case of an extended outage. Furthermore, the website will use secure https connections, which are not supported by SourceForge at this time.
Old links will continue to work and redirect to the new site.
Improved availability of Stendhal webstart and updates
The recent one-week-downtime at SourceForge, made it very clear, that we are having a number of "single points of failure". When any one of these "singe points" fails, most of the system becomes unusable. This is regardless of how much redundancy is available at other parts of the system.
In our case Stendhal webstart is loaded from the Stendhal website, it checks an update-description file on the Arianne website to determine what additional files need to be downloaded. Those files are downloaded from the SourceForge mirror network.
Both the Arianne website and the SourceForge mirror network consist of many servers. So if a download-server fails, everything will continue to work without issue. But when the mirror dispatcher failed, the complete mirror network became unavailable. SourceForge repaired it within two days.
But at this time, howver, Stendhal webstart was still not working again because the SourceForge project web services, on which the Arianne website is hosted, was not fixed until about a week later. So the Stendhal webstart client did not know, what files to download.
Starting with the upcoming Stendhal version 1.18 the Webstart starter will check arianne-project.org for the update description file. If that fails, it will try again on arianne.sourceforge.net. The update description file contains complete URLs, so in case the SourceForge mirror network fails again, we can change over to Github, for example.
2015-04-20
Fish are jumping out of the water. Did they smell the rain?
The snow during this Christmas season was a harbinger for the new weather system. Now you can expect real and dynamic weather effects all around the world. It may start to rain. If it is hot outside, you may hear thunder. But if it is too cold, the rain will turn into snow.
Despite the bad weather, the great masters of melee combat have improved their style. Swords and clubs are now visible during fights.
A new medicinal ring is said to offer some protection against being poisoned. Is it true or just imagination?
In the Stendhal client, the indication of new chat message is more visible now. If you are using a very old computer, you can disable weather effects to improve drawing performance.
Please see the complete change log for additional changes.
2015-04-05
According to popular rumors a bunny is roaming the world. It is said that he is carrying a basket of chocolate and hands out sweets to any person he meets.
The citizens of Semos have decorated their houses in an attempt to lure the generous bunny into their town.
2014-12-13
Semos is decorated for Christmas and everyone is really excited.
Two years ago, Oh Tannenbaum was the seasonal song, this year, we picked another old German carol:
Schneeflöckchen, Weißröckchen,
English version:
wann kommst du geschneit?
Du wohnst in den Wolken,
dein Weg ist so weit.Lil' Snowflake, Lil' White Skirt,
When will you snow?
You live in the clouds
Your way is so far.Speaking of snowflakes, it's snowing peacefully in Semos for the first time in Stendhal history. But be careful, the weather is not that nice high up in the mountains. Let's hope, Santa won't get caught by surprise.
2014-10-26
Stendhal 1.15.1 is a server-only security fix. It fixes an issue resulting in multiple corpse from a single creature, if this creature was poisoned by a summon-scroll creature.
If you are curious about how such a bug happens, have a look at the detailed analysis.
2014-10-05
Yay, it's time to party! Today the yearly celebration of the Mine Town Revival weeks start at the dungeon entrance north of Semos city. We have fun games, food and drinks. The popular Sokoban game and paper chase are back as well.
Semos is decorated in a mystic theme. But keep your eyes open, there may be real secrets hidden behind the scenes. For example, Ados children are passing cryptic messages forth and back about their observations.
There are, however, other forces at play, too, pushing hard for more transparency. If your computer is fast enough, that is.
You can also read the full full change log.
2014-06-02
The librarians have been busy collecting information from all around the world to create an easily accessible encyclopaedia, including entries about creatures and items, quests and achievements, as well as guides about the world and for players. They even created a register of residents.
But knowledge alone is not wisdom. Those librarians couldn't be that wise without the experience they gained for years. Equally, real warriors need to seek out into the world to become truly effective fighters. Therefore trained warriors with high attack and defense skills but little experience will notice that they are less efficient until they gain some experience. Average players, however, will not be affected by the change.
If you need a break from studying and training, you can join us in the new garden in Fado city and relax for some time while listening to the calming sound of the city pond.
You can also read the full full change log.
Update: We made server-only release of Stendhal 1.14.1, which fixes an issue with the Harvest quest.
2014-02-09
There have been reports that rats are more aggressive towards weak people. Are they just hungry? Or is more going on? There are even rumors that hell itself has been repainted.
With the angst about unseen forces being active, wizards have worked restlessly to strengthen the defenses. Early results of their work, increased mental abilities of ordinary people: Your intuition of your current position on the world is much clearer now. And Postman will no longer accept message for you from people, who you have mentally blocked.
We fixed an incompability in the web-based starter, which was introduced by the latest update of Oracle Java.
You can also read the full full change log.
2013-12-12
Good tidings we bring
(There's a new release of Stendhal!)for you and your kin
(Please do spread the word!)We wish you a Merry Christmas
(Find Santa! and treats for Rudolph!)and a Happy New Year.
(Make your New Years Resolution
to try something new.)Hope you liked our take on the classic Christmas verse. You can also read the full full change log.
Merry Christmas!
Update: Stendhal 1.12.1 is a server only release which fixes a karma exploit on accepting accepted quests. It also fixes a bug which prevented defensive PVP actions against weaker players.
2013-10-15
Stendhal 1.11 was released with a big party. Join the festival at the abandoned mine town in the north. Celebrate with costumes and food, quests and puzzles. But don't forget, that kobolds and slime still lurk in the mines.
The Mine Town Revival Weeks have a long tradition in Stendhal, but there is something new every year.
Since a girl called Susi was rescued five years ago, the Mine Town Revival Weeks became very popular with lots of spooky decorations. Many characters from all around the world got interested in the events. Those, who have to stay at home, joined in to organize a gigantic paper-chase all over the world.
On a side note, NPCs who trade items or heal can now be spotted easily by watching out for little icons next to them.
With all the partying going on, it is important to stay safe and secure. On login, you will be informed of your last successful and failed login attempts. You can see a complete login history for the last 7 days on the Stendhal website.
To read about all the other changes see the full change log.
2013-09-09
The creatures and elves in Faiumoni might be self conscious, as they have been making some cosmetic changes. Seremela in Nalwor flowershop started a trend by dyeing her hair a beautiful violet. Many creatures followed her example and improved their appearance as well; but not as drastically. And all the shop owners have improved the look of their signs, so that sparkly items also sparkle on the signs!
Not to be out-done, Harold has found a new way to announce new offers from players by making his own page at https://stendhalgame.org/trade/. There is a feed available, so that you can subscribe and find out about offers as they happen!
Not all the changes in Stendhal 1.10 are visible, though. Some invisible changes will make it easier for developers to add new content in the future. For example, the handling of status icons (like poisoned) is now controlled by the server and supports multiple indicators. To read about all the other changes see the full change log.
2013-07-25
Are you strong, and like to push things? Now you can test your muscles against heavy straw carts. Eheneumniranin, the half elf, will thank you for helping him.
You'll earn karma for doing this good deed, and it's now easier to see when your karma changes - whether earning it, consuming it or losing it - look for the blinking white indicator!
You can also help Klaas, if your stomach is strong enough for all the rats near him! He needs some rodent traps.
Look out for these new quests and lots of other changes including sprite fixes, a new xeno helmet, new sounds effects for fishing and much more - the full change log is here.
2013-06-05
With Summer approaching, it's a perfect time to be outside. Look out for beautiful butterflies, hopping rabbits, and even a friendly puppy wagging his tail. These are not pets, not foes, just natural creatures to admire.
If you gather some flowers on your summer stroll, be sure to keep them for the girl elf Seremela, who needs to restock her shop. Jenny will be busy!
While outside, be aware of new sounds and sights, especially from creatures. Although, take care, the big ones look a little scarier when you attack them (but they are no more mighty than before).
To read about lots and lots of other changes including item name highlighting, smarter context menu, new client options and more, check out the full change log.
2013-04-18
With stone blocks you can push around, you better be careful not to get trapped! You can puzzle over what kind of games you want play with them. Another trap to be wary of is the giant snake pit beneath Ados caves, with king cobras and other scary reptiles you may never have seen before.
Here's a puzzle for you: how do you collect emotion crystals? The answer: by answering more puzzles! If you like the sound of this, go see Julius. There's other new items too (like a rodent trap!), some have got the attention of Mayor Chalmers and Hazel. Keep an eye out incase you are asked to collect them! While your eyes are open, keep an ear open too - there are plenty of sounds to pick up. Can you hear running water in the bathrooms, creaking ships and musical pianos? Just don't listen out too long for all the new sounds from creatures ... or they may trap you themselves! To read the rest of the changes, take a look at the full change log.
p.s. please welcome AntumDeluge, a new developer to the team! Thanks a lot for all your work on this release and to Bluelads4 for extra special support.
2013-02-12
hiss of snake and oink of pig, squeak of mouse and roar of lion...This witchy incantation has released the trapped sounds of many creatures in the wildlife. Some creatures' spirits have been released too, with the dead corpses of slimes, ents and stone golems now representing their true form. Even the trees have seen some change, with branches trimmed for better uniformity across the land.
Noone is sure if it's related, but those blue items that were sold by some orcs can now also be found in certain creature corpses, and could be a bonus for mid level players. It's also rumoured that certain dwarves are being careless and dropping their leg protection ...
To read about other changes please see the change log.
2012-12-15
Christmas is coming! Santa is out to deliver presents (if you have been good!) and you can make friends with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer too!
It's been snowing in Semos so the city is covered with white, and there are decorations up. Want to stretch out the view across your whole screen? Now you can! Maximising and minimising will scale all our lovely graphics to fit, and you can also choose a different font size to match.
If you'd like to read about other changes please check our log.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the whole team!
2012-10-22
Welcome to the 5th year of Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks! They've actually been running since 2006, but in that year Susi from Ados went missing. So, it was abandoned in 2007, but by 2008 Susi was found safe and well, just living with pirates! Every year since there has been a celebration. This year's is different, with spooky lights for Halloween and a brand new Paper Chase quest which will take you all around the huge world in search of the next clue. There are also games, costumes to rent, and of course you can say hello to Susi.
The party isn't the only update to tell you about, to read the rest of the changes, take a look at the full change log
2012-09-12
Why bother keeping records? Well, it can be informative or it can be helpful. Take the example of Sue the gardener, she's been cataloguing every plant she's ever found on the island! She's recently joined up with Ados City to help create Ados Botanical Gardens. What a beautiful example of record keeping.
Records can bring us a sense of achievement. Three new achievements have been unlocked - how many times have you completed the Kirdneh Musuem quest, and can you kill every creature, not alone but with the help of another? These achievements can only be awarded through careful record keeping.
Outside of the game world, the server admins want to help you preserve access to your account if you lose it. The registered email address is usually used for this. Now, if you needed to change your registered email address, this is possible after logging on at stendhalgame.org. To see the record of all the other updates please check our change log.
2012-08-07
A spooky atmosphere has settled, with casts of colour appearing over some deep tunnels and magical areas. Vampires hiding in the dim shadows in Semos Catacombs have even added to their disguise - looking normal and friendly right up until they attack you, transforming into their terrifying form.
Perhaps in response to the darkness, more ground dwellers have been installing lamps. Ados Market and the gnome village in particular are still busy after hours and they need the light. If you're worried about darkness falling, you can keep an eye on the time by checking the clocks around the world.
Visitors new to our world are now guided by the friendly face of Io Flotto. Her telepathic tutorials are timed to give information just when needed. Will, the guardian of Semos Road East, also has helpful tips for newbies, especially those who don't wear a shield. Starkad, the expert on all creatures, also now charges a lot less to give hints to those with little experience.
To find out about more improvements, including making the client more playable on small netbooks, Macs, and without a mouse, please see the complete change log.
2012-07-05
We've released a bug fix to the client, which solves the problem of a delay on zone change. Please help us continue to keep the client quality high by reporting bugs and testing the development versions in advance of each release. Thank you to those who reported the problem and helped us test this fix!
For developers: the code change is in SoundFile.java.
2012-07-01
We believe in the strength of the community spirit and that people are essentially good. We're helping that along with social functions, and also fixing problems where we can. We need your help in this too, but here's what we've been working on:
Many of you love an interesting conversation, and now private messages are easier to keep track of, in your Personal chat tab. To find out more about a friend, use /profile <name> to open their character page. Still, we know that not everyone is friendly and if you did happen to drop a precious quest reward item under another player, you can now pick it up from under them (but it's still better never to put your items on the ground!)
A recent problem was players monopolizing the trapped chaos green dragonrider by Haastaja and using nasty tactics to keep others away. That seemed really unfair. Luckily, that dragon has got his revenge, he's learnt how to breathe fire and can fight back even when trapped. Watch out, because other fierce dragons have picked up the fire breathing trick too! You'll need to stand well back to stay out of range.
Perhaps you'd also like to know how to help the residents of Faiumoni. You can ask the sisters Zinnia, Calla, Lobelia and Periwinkle. They'll tell you which dwellers nearby need help, but only if their tasks are suitable for your experience. Another friend for you is little Will, standing guard to warn newbies leaving Semos that they need to take care.
To read about even more changes, see the complete change log.
2012-07-01
Marauroa 3.9.2 introduces a better algorithm to store hashed passwords (it can be disabled with password_hash=md5 in the configuration file server.ini for compatibility). It fixes an issue that prevented clients from caching transferable content. Finally, it works around a bug in OpenJDK webstart which prevents clients from connecting to a server if a http proxy, without a socks proxy, is configured in Firefox.
2012-05-17
Stendhal 1.00 is a fun friendly and completely free multiplayer online adventure game with an old school feel. We're happy to announce the first stable release of this open source game at stendhalgame.org.
You can play Stendhal 1.00 on Windows, Mac and Linux. With Java installed, playing is as simple as clicking Play Now on stendhalgame.org.
Your character awakes in the house of an experienced guard, start a conversation and he'll teach you how to fight ... but even rats are probably a challenge at first, if you can catch them.
Stepping outside you'll appreciate the beauty of the simple village around you, but once you're strong enough, venture further afield for cities, dungeons, forests, mines, mountains and even tropical islands.
On your way you'll meet over 250 NPCs to chat to, and be tasked with over 100 complex and interesting quests. You may be asked to help protect land or people from danger, feed the hungry, heal the sick, make someone happy, solve a puzzle, play a game or simply lend a hand. You can keep track of your progress using a Travel Log.
Other players will help out and the often filled 'community chest' in the main city is a testament to the friendly groups we have here - though note that PVP is enabled, so if you're nervous, stay in protected areas!
Monsters are the real enemy, as if they are not kept in check, they threaten to plague the cities. You'll meet little crabs and mice right through to terrifying dark archangels and gashadokuro. Some fight with magical forces, so choose your weapons carefully. For elite warriors, the Death Match awaits...
As you play your level and stats will improve, and you'll be awarded achievements for completing quests, visiting places, looting items, killing monsters (and more!). You can compare yourself to your friends and see how close you are to the Hall of Fame. The website also has stats on every item, creature, npc, quest, and achievement available in the game and a neat google maps-based world atlas.
It's all too easy to start playing, get hooked... and if you like, get the source code, and add your own ideas!
See you soon at stendhalgame.org.
2012-02-05
In Stendhal 0.99, small, effective changes include allowing players with items under them to be pushed (the item moves with the player so stays safe). This should mean less possibility of being blocked in by another player as now you can push them out the way even if they have an item underneath. Similarly, reports of new players being attacked by a low level character with very high attack and defence skills, showed us that a PVP check on level alone, wasn't enough. Now attack and defence are compared too when deciding if a player attack would be a fair fight.
You can't miss the lit up cities at night time. With more lamps lit, it is a brighter world outdoors and even coloured lights are possible. If you'd like to save images of any of these pretty changes, there is a menu item to capture screenshots.
Admin names are now anonymised when answering support. Admins help with technical issues and bug reports, and support is logged to be answered, without needing to be in game to answer it. Admins are not glory hunters :) Speaking of anonymous names, have you met Marie-Henri? He challenges you to find out his pen name ...
To read about the other changes please see the complete change log. If you find any bugs, old or new, while playing please contact /support in game or submit a bug report directly. We want the next release, Stendhal 1.00, to be as stable as possible. It will not include any new untested features, and you are our best testers :)
2012-02-05
Marauroa 3.9 supports SOCKS-proxy, much longer ban messages and hashes in content transfer offers. The changes are described in detail at the change document.
2011-12-16
Listen to kymara talking about Arianne at this podcast. Topics include an exciting plan for the future - HTML5 support!
2011-12-02
As the day turns into night, keep your worries out of sight.
Faiumoni's eternal daylight curse has been lifted, and once again the sun sets and rises. Don't be concerned about the darkness: nights are short, and lamps light busier streets. However, for those afraid of the dark, there is help.But what about the worry of real danger, how do you know what lurks to attack you even in daylight? Some warriors get a sense of danger for a new area by looking at the surroundings, but appearances can be deceiving. This sense of danger has now been honed. Warning skulls appear for places beyond your experience or that could be danger to linger long in. Of course, it is up to you, whether you heed the white warning skulls...
For those who can get to Nalwor city without much danger, a fun new guessing game awaits. Crearid will challenge you to guess how many creatures you have killed! Take a trip too, to Ados, where builders and decorators have been busy. Chat with the new Ados banker, Rachel, and visit Coralia next door - she may have a fruity feat for you.
As previously announced, you can't fight in the areas around healers any more - Jynath and Katerina both cast protection spells near them, being fed up of listening to petty problems related to fighting nearby.
To read about all the changes including any not summarised here, please see the full change log.
2011-10-12
Would you love to wear a rainbow every day, and tell the world that everything's okay? Now, you can. Choose a bright colour when you select your outfit, you can shade your hair and clothes. All the colour may help you get in the party mood for Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks. Check out Semos and the Mine Town, newly decorated for Hallowe'en and with games to play.
It's not just clothes that changed their look, but the ground around you too - take a trip to Kikareukin Caves or to the Northern mountain ranges - it really seems like Autumn has brought many changes. To read about these and more, please take a look at the full change log.
2011-08-25
Those who first arrive on Faiumoni to experience adventure should be welcomed by all, and find the place easy to navigate. Semos has had a problem with wild creatures nearby and newcomers wandering easily into the forest instead of the city, so friendly citizens storyteller and kiheru have built a palisade wall for protection and guidance. Various animal pens, including the wolves in the park north of Semos, have working gates. For learning the way around, everyone now has easy access to a clever atlas created by hendrik and monsterdhal, and a friendly beginners guide.
New visitors are often keen to start out helping others. The little boy Tad that many newcomers meet and help, has moved from his lonely spot in the Town hall, into Semos Hostel, and if anyone forgets to help him, Ketteh Wehoh, who is now in the Town Hall, will remind them! For tasks which a newcomer might like to help with (or not) there are warnings in the popular 'Travel Log' if the quest is not suitable yet. And tasks from Barbarus and Haunchy Meatoch are now more rewarding. After all this work, perhaps you'd like to relax in Fado hotel's sunny new beer garden?
If you'd like to find out about all the other changes please read the full change log.
2011-07-14
Stendhal's innovative client updates mean that our players don't have to do a new download for every new release. This requires that the packages are signed with a security certificate, and those expire once per year - requiring all players to download again! The updater has been rewritten to avoid this in the future while keeping secure, signed packages.
Note: Webstart will automatically do a fresh download. The download-client will ask you to do a new download.
In game, you'll notice changes to the Stendhal client text boxes which now attach to the bottom of the screen instead of obscuring game play. (If you didn't know, you can always click on them or hit ctrl-r to remove all text boxes on the screen). There are also two new quests to enjoy - head to Athor to help out John and Jane, or Ados Cemetery where you'll find Andy.
Stendhal's server has been updated to Marauroa 3.8.7 which greatly improves performance, especially for games with very large numbers of players. Also, any slowness in the database no longer causes the client to timeout on login.
A full list of changes can be read at our change log.
2011-06-04
Update: The server migration was successful and fast. Our case study document 'Moving the Stendhal server to a new host' explains the details and would act as a good introduction to some game engine and database concepts.
It's not always easy to know what people want to hear, in conversation. As Monogenes explains, safe topics of conversation you can always try for an NPC who is listening to you include keywords like job, help, offer, quest. In this case, a small 'ear' icon shows that the NPC is listening. Sometimes a question is asked which requires a yes/no answer, or a specific other trigger word is expected. In this case, the small 'ear' icon will now have a '?' sign over it. This is to indicate that a special response is expected - so read what the NPC has said, carefully!
The response to role play achievements has been overwhelmingly positive and we have added a few new achievements to aim for. Login and check out your character page on the website to see what you are missing! As before, the aim of these achievements is to encourage richness and variety of role playing experience.
There are a few other changes and bug fixes which you can get more details on at the change log.
Mostly this month has been behind the scenes work - to prepare for a server migration, which will happen soon. Extensive preparation means that the downtime for the game itself should be very short. The server name stendhalgame.org will not change. Except for a short downtime, the migration will not have any visible effects. A write-up will follow, for those interested in the technical details of how we would manage a server migrate with only a short downtime, when we need to transfer huge quantities of persistent game data and logged events.
2011-04-12
Easter is coming, and we celebrate the cycle of birth, life and death. Flowers are flourishing and our favourite Easter Bunny will be dropping small chocolate eggs as he roams the island. Did you know that eggs are a symbol of new life?
Water, the elixir of life, bubbles fresh from a waterfall south of Nal'wor, and you can collect it if you bring something to catch it. A certain thirsty Fado dweller would be happy if you could take him some.
Do you find life gets particularly exciting in battles to the death? Then try the Ados Deathmatch. As your level increases you now get more time to kill each creature, especially if you are fighting alone.
At the end of the life cycle is death, and for those who kill many creatures, corpse looting got more convenient. Corpses will open immediately for loot as you kill a creature, and close when it is empty. This means even if another creature (or player) got in the way, you can still claim what is rightfully yours. A helpful legend lets you know which poor critter died, and for a short time your corpses can't be thrown too far by others, as though they were weighed down by protective magic.
Please join us for this celebration at Easter time, and feel free to check out the other changes at the change log.
2011-04-12
Marauroa 3.8.6 features performance optimisations for RPObject, by reducing the number of instantiations and creating internal maps and lists only on demand. More changes at the change log.
2011-02-26
Being a true hero is about much more than just killing creatures, it's even more than completing quests and gaining experience. A true hero is alive to the opportunities offered to him, he explores the world's furthest reaches, samples everything he can try and collects rare items. Your challenge is to reach all possible achievements! Compare to your friends, too, here is madmetzger, who developed achievements, as an example.
One quest related achievement is to complete all quests for those living in Semos City and Village - and there's a new one for you to try - grow a sheep for Nishiya! Another is to help all children in the world, as they need extra special help. Jef in Kirdneh has lost his mom, could you help find her?
Adventures and expeditions can be fun with your friends around you. If you agree with this sentiment, try forming an expedition group the next time you all go out to fight. All group members can then immediately access corpses for looting, no matter who from the expedition group killed the creature. You get a group chatting channel, and can see the health of your friends in the group in a dedicated groups tab. Our vision is that these groups are quite dynamic in nature, where players will leave and join new expedition groups as each adventure requires. A longer term plan is the creation of a guild system, for lasting groupings of players and with different features, existing alongside expedition groups.
2011-01-02
Did you know how many people are in the world and what quests you have completed for them? What tasks have you been asked to do that you've forgotten about ...? With over 250 NPCs to meet and nearly 100 quests to complete it can be easy to forget the details!
This progress log shows your quest history, with details on both open and completed quests, for every quest in the game. This is experimental - so we welcome your feedback* - perhaps we have put in too many details, or too few? Is anything unexpected? kymara did the huge task of filling the possible logs that can be generated for each quest, with help from Bluelads4 especially for testing. kiheru made the very nice dialog, which our beta testers commented was better to have as a separate window so that it can be left open while playing without covering the game screen.
If you think you've done all the quests here's a least one new one for you: help Anastasia, who lives on Ados farm, to heal her son. To read about all the other changes please see our change log.
*Feel free to use /support to provide your feedback in game, or open a bug report. Thank you and Happy New Year to all!
2010-12-10
Merry Christmas everyone! Semos is decorated for Christmas and soon Santa could be delivering presents on a street near you. There's plenty of treats available for Christmas, try crepes from a ratty chef, take chocolate to a hungry little girl, or to continue the theme of goodwill, help a scared man in the Kirdneh region.
Jynath and Katerina decided to compromise for Christmas and both change their healing prices, as Katerina was undercutting Jynath's market! Now they charge the same. The magic of corpse protection is also working in a fairer way, thanks to some magic wand waving.
The team actively deal with bugs (which are, after all, a fact of life) and implement feature requests on an ongoing basis. Recently a one man drive by martinf to reduce the number of code warnings has resulted in the graph you see right. Although not affecting your gameplay in Stendhal, fixing all these warnings means better code and therefore a better future!
Please see the change log for all changes, and happy Christmas!
2010-11-24
Mmmm.... are you hungry? Faiumoni is having quite some food festival, with sisters Gertha and Martha baking pies packed with cherries and apples. There's new fish to angle for on Amazon island, and elsewhere you'll find garlic and artichokes growing. You can harvest sugar cane, and collect eggs from hen's nests. To wash down all this food you'll need a tasty drink, perhaps koboldish torcibud? For that you'd need fierywater, which is where sugar cane will come in handy. You can meet the distiller in Ados market.
Did you get a balloon from the game at the Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks? If so then perhaps you can make a small boy, Bobby from Fado, really happy. He'll reward you kindly, if you give it to him. Another friendly thing you could do for others would be to plant flowers in the plains north of Semos. Jenny's selling new seeds and bulbs, there's never been a better time to beautify the world. House owners can also plant flowers on a patch in their home.
Flowers and food not interesting you? Perhaps you're a hard core slayer of dragons, goblins, orcs and demons? Then you'll be happy to hear that if YOU were the one to take the hits from a creature YOU'll have first chance to loot the corpse. Others will have to wait! Still, if you do want to share the winnings perhaps the control-drag-and-drop quantity selector will be useful. For those who watch others battle in exciting matches to the death, there's been a fun new addition to the Deathmatch arena. Thanatos has installed scrying orbs, which allow the viewer to see right inside the arena, just perfect for seeing all the action.
There's a whole lot more changes to read about at the change log so do check it out.
2010-11-23
Marauroa 3.8.4 is released. Marauroa 3.8.4 adds features for supporting a game test server sharing a database with a production game server. We're making use of this for Stendhal testing and if you want to try the same you can follow our guide. For more changes please see marauroa's changelog.
2010-10-15
Autumn, tis the season for migration. And Ados seems to be the city to migrate to, with many new dwellers arriving here. Undeterred by the food shortages, these entrepreneurs will cook for you if you bring them what they need. If you visit Ados market, to the north of the city, you can try a tasty fish soup or a perfectly grilled steak. Elsewhere in Ados you'll find other newcomers, so please be sure to stop for a chat and welcome them here.
We'd like to commend Harold who recently started his job as a Trading Manager and has been doing ever so well advertising the trades. Still, if two players already want to trade, they don't need to use Harold ... but the days of the old trading table in Semos Bank are over. Now you can complete a direct trade by standing with your trading partner and right clicking on them to bring up a Trading Window. Try it out, but don't forget poor Harold for those tentative sales where you're still looking for a buyer ... The makers of Stendhal would like to apologise to Harold for any loss in sales the new Trading Window could cause.
You can learn more about these changes and read about all the rest at the change log.
2010-09-14
Some issues with the 0.87 client for Windows users were reported after release. We hope that with 0.87.1 they are fixed, but if you still have issues please contact /support in game with your Operating System, Java version and Graphics card details. Thank you for your understanding.
2010-09-13
Thanks to a lot of hard work from kiheru we're happy to announce the fulfilment of our most frequently requested feature enhancement - floating windows off the main game screen. Your bag, keyrings, settings and character panel will no longer obscure the game view!
As you can see we're pictured above with postman. Sometimes it's nice to read messages you received a while ago, or even ones you sent. Now you can check your old postman messages and read new ones by checking online at stendhalgame.org. Postman will also now take messages for you when you are marked away in game, and when you return from being away he'll send you any messages left for you in that time. You can learn more about these changes and read about all the rest at the change log.
2010-07-26
Have you noticed the graceful round tower in Semos Mountains and wondered what goes on in that lofty spire? The guardian of the tower, Zekiel, has prepared a quest for you - complete the Wizards Circle and access will be granted.
Perhaps the sorceress Sarzina visited the Wizards Circle, for she has a new power also; she can enable you to visualise your karma: good, or bad, at any time.
The magic from that round tower is overspilling into the world, and your imagination. What was square has become circular - when you visualise attacks, you'll now see circles. Your hearing may be more advanced, with strains of music, bells, and other sounds now audible that you could not hear before.
You'll find heightened awareness of the world around you, for example pathways will be more clearly marked and you can more readily access your inventory, or any help you need. If you keep your eyes and ears open, you'll discover many more magical little changes in the world.
2010-07-25
Marauroa 3.8.1 is released. Marauroa 3.8.1 is mostly a bug fix release, with some additional work around characters. For full details please see marauroa's changelog.
2010-06-27
Farmers like Karl have learnt a more efficient sowing technique. Each small patch of grain in the fields is planted closer together, so it will slow you down when you walk over that patch, but you can walk more easily between grain rows than before. After you harvested all your grain, you'd take it to Jenny to be milled. Do you sometimes forget that you left an order with her, or for how much? Well, now you can use /listproducers to be reminded of all your orders you placed with Jenny and other workers who cast, make and bake for you. You may use that to remember to collect some sandwiches you made with Leander, for Phalk. The dwarf guardian is hungry at his station in Semos mines and would appreciate some food and drink.
Stendhal 0.85 has some changes you'll notice as you start the client, too. There is a new wooden panel theme and now it is used for all the parts of the Stendhal client including the buttons on the first screen. When you login to your account you'll notice a dialog with your character, you need to click on that to login. If you have more than one account, you can merge them, so that when you login you can choose between your characters. Please read https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Stendhal_Account_Merging for more details. This is optional, it does not affect gameplay, and you can still play more than one character at the same time.
2010-06-26
Marauroa 3.8 is released! Marauroa 3.8 adds version compatibility between client and server of different protocol versions. There are two kinds of extensions to the protocol: details in the character list, and maps attributes. Performance is also optimised, with asynchronous login, and 'baking' of RPClasses. Full details are at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/Marauroa_3.8, and you can also refer to marauroa's changelog.
2010-06-02
Are you an obsessive hoarder of rare items? Do you pay high sums for a durin axe (just because it is rare) or camp hours to win a nihonto? Balduin is just like you. If, and only if, you've completed every other quest to collect special items, he'll challenge you to find one more... but don't bother asking your friends what he challenged them with, your quest could well be different.
Despot Halb Errvl has been sitting alone in the Mithrilbourgh Throne Room for too long. He's become really paranoid about rival armies, and is asking for help killing hundreds of enemies. He doesn't care where you find them, so long as you kill as many as possible. Others who ask for your help in for example cleaning a cellar of spiders, really will check now that you killed spiders from their cellar and not just any old spider. They realised that we've been deceiving them a little in the past with our proof of kills!
The pizza baker Leander is now more responsible: he sends his employees only to locations that he is confident they can survive in. But the food situation at Ados Wild Life Refuge has got worse: they are now in need of weekly supplies. Katinka will ask you to bring food they need for the animals in the zoo, and to thank you Dr. Feelgood will heal your pets and sheep and might sell you some cheap medicine. If you are not interested in feeding the animals to get cheap potions you can still buy them elsewhere. There is Carmen in Semos, and in Fado is Sarzina, who joined the potion market, selling mega potions.
Last but not least the user interface was improved so that status icons for being away or eating are also displayed in the side panel. Flying arrows are now visible in the world, and if you'd like supplies of these to experiment with you can buy them from Mrotho and Diehelm Brui. Missiles are effective too, and early experimentation has shown that fire shuriken work somewhat better than snowballs...
2010-06-01
Marauroa 3.7 is released, with changes to handling of characters. Full details are at marauroa's changelog.
2010-04-30
The forces of the elements have lain dormant in the world for a long time. But now, fire, ice, dark and light magic is awakening. Those wielding a fire sword will find excellent results when fighting for example an ice elemental, while fire elementals resist fire weapons very well. Likewise, magical defensive items can aid, or can hinder, when fighting magical creatures. A black shield gives extra protection against the dark power of a black death, but is vulnerable to the light magic emanating from an angel.
Military leaders started to question their attack strategies recently, wondering why their troops are never changing target to kill off the weakest enemy first. So, the top military leaders (commanders, generals, and so on) are trialling a system of targetting the weakest enemy first, and even changing attack if a new, weaker enemy is within reach. Sources suggest that this tactic was actually inspired by the dragons and elite creatures, who themselves thought of the idea first. In any case, it is true that dragons and the strongest creatures have also adopted this 'attack the weakest' policy.
The Ados Mayor has been grateful for help with his 'rat problem' - but the situation is getting worse, with more rats invading the city whenever one spots an opportunity. To help Ados just listen out for Mayor Chalmers: he'll surely call when he needs help. He's also sent warriors to investigate the so-called 'Rat City' deep in Or'ril dungeons, who have noticed increased activity there recently, a larger population of the talking rat men and women, and some open doors to reach new dungeons.
As you explore it's good to know what you're looking at and how you can interact with the world. Now your mouse cursor gives you a hint: for enemies it displays a sword representing combat, for other people, or signs to look at, a magnifying glass is shown, for the ground you can walk on, some footprints, and so on. For those already with /clickmode set for single click walking, these actions shown by the mouse are done with a single click, too. This includes attack, look, inspect or loot a corpse, use a portal (even from a distance). There is no change for those with double click /clickmode. Using items from the bag will remain double click for everyone (since you may single click on items to drag and drop them).
There's much more news than can fit here, so to read about the many other changes please check the Stendhal changelog.
2010-03-28
Stendhal 0.82.1 adds the command /clickmode to toggle between single click walk and double click walk. It also fixes a bug in owning pets, /mute being remembered across restart, and an issue for Microsoft Windows users when moving corpses. For full details please see the Stendhal changelog.
2010-03-27
We had a big party in Ados to celebrate Spring. Maria was on hand to sell party food and drinks, and there was a Tournament where players challenged each other to prove their strength. The party got a huge number of guests!
bell13 and snakevip were chosen as first place winners, with killerm, love_puppet and emily in second place. Well done all! You can read the full results from the Tournament, with details of every fight, at our wiki.
2010-03-26
Is that a giant soap bubble which has landed in Kalavan City? No, it's a magical orb, and provided that Ilisa has taught you the art of scrying, you can use this magical orb to take you ... erm ... who knows! Somewhere fun, that's for sure. While you're in the Kalavan area, if you can brave the castle, you'll find someone with a favour to ask you.
If you get around using automatic walking, you should notice smoother movement, and that you can start walking with only one click, not two. Hopefully you've been enjoying the rich variety of sounds and music around recently. Now you have ability to set the overall sound volume, and even adjust creature volume independently of the background music volume, for example.
Rats are particularly noisy little critters, and Ados is starting to have a bit of a rat problem. When you hear the Ados mayor shout for help, would you please go kill some rats in buildings inside Ados? The city is getting overrun and he'll reward you well.
Spring is well on the way, so if you are lucky you can find the Easter Bunny hopping about, and he might have a present for you. And we'd love it if you can join us for a Spring festival party this weekend.
2010-03-05
Our Client Quality Week has already resulted in useful bug reports from helpful players. Thanks to this we have been able to make bugfix releases Stendhal 0.81.1 and 0.81.2 which fix a couple of issues with the latest release, for full details please see the Stendhal changelog.
Thanks everyone for uploading your error log files and please continue to do so.2010-02-23
Marauroa 3.5 adds the ability to limit parallel connections and account creation, and these limits are configurable. Full details can be found at the Marauroa changelog.
2010-02-20
Did you know that one of your friends from Semos is a composer of music? Storyteller wrote some songs and they're playing now in various places. Plassy created the system to play the music and hendrik showed Margaret in the tavern and the spirits in the dungeons how to play it.
The telepath Io Flotto has strengthened the /ignore instruction for you. Now, when you are ignoring chat from another, they look shaded out to black. It means you won't see the outfit and the name becomes less readable. In the demonstration image here you can see Athor labyrinth, which Laguz has redecorated.
Did you sometimes have problems with holes in your bag when you moved items around in it? Well, Ida the seamstress has very kindly sewed them all up for you. We think that kiheru taught her a new technique, and now you should accidentally drop items less.
Finally for those of you who love playing so much that you would like your own server to play on, the installation process has been vastly simplified. Remember, Stendhal is software released under an open source license, the GPL!
2010-02-19
Marauroa 3.4 adds support for the H2 serverless database system, as an alternative to MySQL. There are a number of other new features, relating to setting the max number of players, temporary bans and inactive accounts. Full details can be found at the Marauroa changelog.
2010-01-24
On Friday 22nd January a sign appeared in Semos:
"I hid my cat somewhere in Fauimoni. Find and bring her to semos tavern and totaling up to 48,500 HP and a few scrolls. You have until Sunday 11:59.59 server time. Good luck and thanks for your participation. Note, cats name has been changed. lol Have fun!"
Geomac had created this hide and seek game for the players! So the hunt started, from all those who were worried about the cat left alone, and those who wanted the generous prize. But where was the cat? By Saturday it was still not found and geomac added this message:
"Clue: An Item needed by Linzo is nearby."
Finally on Sunday morning snakevip found geomac's cat, deenie, on the 3rd floor of Ados Townhall, by Reg Denson. Snakevip brought deenie to Semos tavern and was rewarded with ingredients for 100 pizzas, 100 fish pies, 24 gold bars, 2 home scrolls, 1 empty scroll, and a marked scroll to Wofol bakery where he could make the pizzas! A wonderful reward and a really great event, many thanks to geomac for organising this.
2010-01-08
Budding salesmen, there is help at hand for make your trading smooth! Harold will be your middle-man, you tell him what price you want to sell your item for, and he will take it from you. Anyone who comes to ask him what offers he has recorded has the chance to buy your item. Once your item is sold, Harold will give you the price that you asked for it. He's new to the job, so he's only accepting 3 offers per person, so that he doesn't overload himself with work.
If you prefer to deal direct with tradesmen, barmaids, and suppliers, then you'll find that easier now too. A kind artist has painted each shop blackboard (or book) with a picture, price, and description of each item for sale. Just look closely at the sign by each shop, and you will see something like the picture on the right here.
Do you remember Haizen, the wizard who sells scrolls? He's learnt some new tricks recently. If you ask him, he'll create a fiendishly difficult maze for you. Can you be the fastest maze runner? You can try a new maze once a day. If that isn't enough to keep you occupied, some of the female population of the island need your help; Carmen, Jenny and Mrs. Yeti would all be happy to hear from you.
We're really happy with the community here, and we hope you are too. But sometimes there's someone you really just want to ignore, and not hear anything at all from. Well, now /ignore name will mean you can't see private or public messages from that person, until you choose to /unignore name. To check who you are currently ignoring, you can type /ignore. Have fun!
2010-01-08
Marauroa is Arianne's Multiplayer Online Engine Server, which you can use to build your own online games. Marauroa 3.3 introduces new features: RPEvents can have RPSlots. This means that events sent from the server to the client can contain more complex data. Games using Marauroa can now check the structure of the database using doesTableExist and doesColumnExist in order to update it.
There are also some bug fixes, to make Marauroa more stable, for example in the case of database errors. Full details can be found in the change log.
2010-01-06
Xhiphin Zohos, from Fado, called for help, because somehow many caged creatures had been let loose. The bandits who did this were in disguise. Luckily, there was a lot of help to kill the creatures, which had gone wild after being captive for so long.
Once Fado was safe and the creatures were dead, Xhiphin Zohos begged for anyone to help look for Harold, who had been the keeper of the animals. He had been kidnapped by the bandits! Every building in Fado was thoroughly searched and Harold was eventually found, safe, in the shepherd house.
Harold explained to his saviours what had happened, how he had been kidnapped, and he thanked them for saving him. He also told them that the whole experience had made him realise that his job was much too dangerous, and now he is going to look for a different job. Lets wish him luck in this!
2010-01-01
Semos was in danger this New Year, from creatures which threatened to invade. Legions of creatures started to appear in the Semos Mine Towns, and a cast of blackness fell over the island. Mayor Sakhs had been forewarned of the disaster, and he called warriors to help defend Semos. He also begged them to find a number of ancient relics which may help protect against the evil.
It was not easy for the brave warriors, they had to seek out the creatures, which were smart and tried to attack from many places. Although the revolt started in the Mine Town, it spread across the mountain ridges, through the plains, and then south west around Semos Jail. Many of the creatures had enhanced strength and health, and the warriors worked as teams to destroy each and every one. Once all the creatures were killed and all ankhs had been found, the warriors journeyed back to the townhall and presented the ankhs for the safety of Semos.
Those intrepid warriors who found ankhs were: shadon, jesco, giovanote (2), kezman, kiyosh, moritzger and madmetzger.
Thanks to all who help to defend Semos, whether from the New Year Revolt or the day by day threats. Happy New Year!
2009-11-13
The Mine Town celebrations are over for another year; the outfits must be folded away and the games packed into boxes. But don't be sad, you can look forward to Christmas now!
While you are playing you may notice an improvement in your client's performance, particularly if you run Ubuntu 9.10 with nvidia drivers on Sun JDK. Client improvements have been the major changes of 0.79, so if you had trouble before we hope that it is better now.
2009-10-22
Come join Susi this year at the Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks - you can play tic tac toe, try a puzzle, play a treasure hunt game, hire a fun outfit and most importantly, make friends with Susi.
In case you don't know the story, three years ago Susi was captured on her way back from the Semos Mine Town revival party. She was missing for two years and there was no party during that time - all of Ados searched for her. Last year, she was found aboard a pirate ship by players who had been defending Ados from a pirate attack. Mein_Dino, IschBing, Maja and Peka were heroes at that raid! This year there will be no fighting or danger, just lots of fun.
2009-09-02 21:33:35
This is the beginning of a very great change - the game menus and windows are being moved off the main screen. Initially, the buddies list and minimap panel have both been moved off your world screen and onto their own side panel, attached to the screen. Also, the chat log is no longer a separate floating window, but a resizeable panel attached to the screen. It's a major step forward and something players have wanted for a long time, soon we hope to be able to move the Bag and Character panels out of the world screen too. It gives you plenty more space to see ...
... terrifying creatures. Do you love to fight these? Then go to the magic city and find the Challenger Haastaja and his pet chaos green dragonrider inside his house. He will summon an adventure island for you, with creatures chosen just for you to kill. (And chosen to be a challenge ... ) It's expensive, and you can only go to the adventure island once every 3 days, but it is well worth the money and the wait.
If you started the adventure called marriage, you'll notice a change in wedding rings. Ognir used magical gold which has limited power, and this power which provides the teleport works best between equals. Once you have used the ring you need to wait at least 5 minutes for it to recharge itself. If you used it to be with a spouse who is a very different level to you, the wait is longer. If you had not been lucky enough to find someone else who would marry you, and you resorted to marrying yourself (a clone), you might find this really affects you, if your clone is very low in level. So, if you want to divorce them instead of levelling them up, then you can temporarily take advantage of Wilfred's special offer. He is letting you pay a fee instead of taking a 3% xp loss on divorce. The fee is 200 x your level, and if you have the money he'll automatically offer you it - if you don't, he'll automatically offer the xp loss.
2009-08-02 23:16:00
Everything has changed but nothing is different. So, what's happened? The engine Marauroa which runs Stendhal and controls the database has had major refactoring; mainly to how it accesses the databases. Things are now possible which weren't before, but these all go on 'behind the scenes'. So, in the world of Stendhal, our NPCs, players, creatures, fighting, banks, items, farming, houses, zones and quests, are all unchanged. Stendhal has been ported to use the newly rewritten engine but everything should look exactly as before.*
We're really happy to announce that the Stendhal client is now compatible with OpenJDK! This is great as OpenJDK is the default Java with many Linux distributions now, so we are happy to have this compatibility. Thanks to omair who provided the fix.
* Well, not quite everything, as corpses have now been redrawn and new types added. It's also now possible to specify a specific corpse for each creature (instead of one across each class) so if you think a certain creature or creature class should have a different looking corpse, and can draw one, please send us your best efforts!
2009-08-02 23:16:00
With Marauroa 3.0, the game engine now supports multithreading, and it is possible to run parallel transactions in different threads. JDBCDatabase has been split into several small *DAO (Data Access Object) classes. Low level database operations are now in the new package marauroa.server.db. These changes will require you to port any application using Marauroa, so for help on how to port your application see Refactoring Database Access in Marauroa. Additionally, we have begun work on supporting other database systems beside MySQL.
2009-07-12 22:50:00
It's all about beauty at this time of year. You'll see it if you buy daisies seeds or lilia seeds from Jenny and watch them grow into fabulous flowers. Be sure you plant them on the patch of fertile ground in Semos Plains North. Anyone can pick your fully grown flower, so you're doing a public service by planting them for all to watch and for some lucky person to pick. Perhaps they're most beautiful left in the ground, though.
You'll see it too in the improved looks of many items and creatures, not to mention the amazing new stendhal splashscreen as voted by YOU the players! If you enjoyed that competition, keep looking out for the next one, you can take part by entering or voting, or both.
Do you ever see players who should not yet have mastered the black arts, but somehow have many black items? Explicitly: low level players who are stacked with really good stuff? Well, although they can use them still, they will get less good defense from defensive items, and attacking weapons will hit with a lower rate, if the user is less than the minimum level required for the item. The closer you are to the minimum level the better you can use the item, and of course if you have more than the min level required to use it properly, you get the optimal stats from it. So, if your player has a 'twin' who you have gifted items to, you may find that his level is not high enough to use them effectively. Or if you're a genuine player but have been lucky enough to receive a lot of very high level gifts, you may prefer to wait to use those gifts till you are at the correct level for them. What apprentice can truly wield his master's sword?
2009-05-23 23:25:00
Finding the 10%* death penalty hard? If you have good karma you could lose a lot less skills now - but if you have bad karma you could lose up to 20%**. If you want to know more ways to get karma just go and ask Sarzina, the wizardess in fado hut, she will tell you.
If you are a regular visitor to hell and the karma 'hit' when you left hell was getting you down, now you have the option to answer a riddle instead. They are quite tricky so if you can't solve it, you can still leave the normal way. Please try to solve these yourself instead of asking other players. It's not the kind of thing to ask help on, either try to solve it or don't bother, just asking for the answer is cheating.
Eight more ados houses have opened for sale and all existing houses images have been updated on StendhalHouses - on that wiki page you will find all the updated information about how player houses got improved in the previous release of 0.73 so you may find it worth reading. Don't forget older houses will become available all the time as their owners resell them or they become reclaimed by the state. There are also some special apartments available in an exciting holiday location, a limited number only.
Last but not least, another fearsome new creature to face in battle - arachne - the name says it all ...
* 1% for emerald ring wearers
** 2 % for emerald ring wearers2009-03-31 16:41:00
Player houses have just got even better! Each house comes with a storage chest, it's not like a player chest where each player sees their own items - it's like the Semos community chest, but inside the house! Everyone with a key can access it, so if you're worried and can't remember who you gave a key to, or if you die and lose your key, hurry to your house seller and ask to get your locks changed. When you're stood outside a house door you can see who owns the house, or if it's for sale, and you can also knock so that anyone inside the house knows you are there. Of course all these features do come with a little teeny cost, and that is a regular House Tax, of 1000 money charged once per month. If you do not go and pay the Ados Taxman then interest is charged, so you owe more, and if you omit to pay for 6 months then you lose your house completely! (This is in fact good news for players, because it means the houses bought by people who no longer play will become free again, yay!) If the tax is too worrying for you, you can simply resell your house to the state, and regain some of the money you spent on buying it.
The people who live on Fauimoni have started to notice the bad aura around those who kill other players, and now they refuse to buy any items from player killers. They will still sell items to player killers, but they charge a bit more. There's plenty more to tell about: creatures, messages, more magic outfits, these we leave to you to explore!
2009-02-22 23:55:00
The Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks Party is over and Susi and her daddy are safe at home now in Ados City. Liliana the magic costume maker has opened a boutique in the magic city, her outfits now last for longer but cost a little more to buy. A new outfit is a great way to express yourself so it is well worth it! Another new way to express yourself is by using the /me command. Just try typing for example '/me loves Stendhal' or '/me thinks kymara is awesome' and you will get the idea!
Do you enter the Ados Deathmatch often? Next time before you go in, try asking Thonatus which heroes are already battling inside. You'd be surprised how accurately he remembers who has recently taken the challenge. Just in case you have trouble finding him, you should know that he has become tired of dodging the dangerous fallen high priests and walking amongst the smelly fallen warriors. He now sticks to the upper (northern) parts of the swamp, it is safer there.
For those players who prefer even safer areas such as Semos city, you must have noticed how crowded the bank can be. This is great for when you want to chat or trade but sometimes one yearns for privacy. Now you can ask Dagobert for access to a personal vault. It's there only when you ask for it, and when you leave it vanishes, so any items which you accidentally leave on the ground are returned to you. You can use a magic scroll to exit the vault, or a portal, and also the ability to use scrolls to exit Semos Bank itself has been restored.
So, players have learnt a number of new abilities - what about creatures? Not to be left out, they have been in training with weapons and learned how to use weapons to attack either slow or fast. Some creatures like the balrog now hit very slow but harder for each hit. Other creatures like a nimble archmage elf or infantry gnome make only very weak hits but faster than normal. It will make for an exciting time so don't delay, try out the new features today.
2008-11-30 17:03:00
To celebrate the lost girl Susi being found safe and well, the tradition of celebrating Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks has returned! For a short time only, visit the Semos Mine Town and get an exciting magic outfit, try a puzzle or chat with the centre of the party, Susi.
Another piece of very good news is about Thanatos, the Death match Assistant. Any of you who have done a Deathmatch will know that Thanatos has suffered from hallucinations for a long time - he sometimes saw live creatures, even when there were none, and wouldn't let you claim your Deathmatch victory! The best doctors in the land have treated him and we're happy to say he's shown a huge improvement in his ability to do his job. He's also had a chat with Mayor Sakhs of Semos, and explained to him that if a player has helped another kill a creature in Deathmatch, even if they didn't start it, then the Mayor should really reward the helper duly. Have fun!
2008-10-03 13:30:05
Warriors, take note! For the rules of combat have changed, and to be ignorant of them is to be in mortal danger!!
The Revised Battle Creed, applying to all beings, creature and human:
- Experience level and attack skill both influence the fighter's ability to damage
- Experience level and defense skill both influence the fighter's ability to defend
- Even weak beings can harm the strongest being
- Against fearsome creatures a heavy weapon is mightier than a knife or dagger
- Be wary when patrolling in hostile areas. Enemies may appear at any moment
- A warrior shall not attack another human soul if he is much weaker than himself, except in defence
- All shall know when they are safe from attack by any other warrior, by the green aura of protection
- Those who kill another soul shall be branded with the red skull of death
Be very aware, the principles of damage apply equally to creatures. You experienced warriors will notice much faster, harder battles than you are used to. Therefore, be cautious until you are again confident of your abilities, and then, go forth and fight!
2008-08-12 17:55:00
The threats of Blordrough's dark legion forces cooperation between citizens. Believe it or not, scientists and magicians set aside their beliefs and differences. They combine efforts to make an awesome piece of equipment that can be used to your advantage. Hmmm, or perhaps they are just doing it for the love of Ida. It is a mission for which you will need to ask for help from many types of people, and you will have plenty you need to collect on the way.
You'll probably be too busy to take a balloon ride up to Kikareukin clouds, and you might even struggle to find time for raids in Fado's new battle arena. If you're even too distracted to look after your pet properly, it will be well looked after in Ados pet sanctuary. Just ask Katinka for help and she will take care of it for you, permanently.
You should make sure you look after yourself well when working so hard, eat regularly ... but not too regularly, because if you stuff too much food into your mouth at once you can choke. Choking hurts ... and can even kill you, so greedy people better watch out!Finally the generous among you will notice that their good karma is lasting longer - you don't need good luck to defeat something significantly weaker than you, just skill. So your luck is saved up for when you really need it. Like in Kikareukin clouds ...
2008-07-03 22:00:00
Grannie played a game of hide and seek with the players tonight. She shouted clues and waited hidden to see who would turn up. Those who solved the clues were rewarded with chocolate, pizza, licorice and more treats!
Congratulations to ladymacbeth for solving every clue and going to the correct places. Thanks to all who took part!
Here are the clues for you to try at home:
* I see a fire burning. A red headed girl has been collecting logs , she only asks a little favor.
* Now go to the father of the girl you found. It smells good where he is.
* You might get stung at my next hiding place!
* I'm by a very lonely boy. Noone remembers to say hi to him.
* My final hiding place is next to the founder of the FSF ...Yes, that's right, even a Richard Stallman NPC is in our game, here to teach players about true free software like Stendhal.
2008-06-30 20:45:00
There's always work to do in Faiumoni. Recently we've been fixing leaks, patching up holes and oiling rusty mechanisms. With all these problems solved, you'll notice less bugs scuttling around. Another change you'll notice is that the number in brackets on your character panel after the ATK and DEF levels now shows the skills needed to level up to the next level. It will count down as you fight instead of counting up.
Linda from Fado Hotel has been on a training course. She now sends couples together to their honeymoon, first checking they are 'just married', of course. She explains about the invitation scroll a bit better now, and is so clever she doesn't even let you go if you don't have space in your bag for the scroll!
Aenihata got bored one day while protecting Semos from the balrog deep in the mines. So he practised some of his 'terraforming' spells and made a brand new cave! Luckily he still has plenty of magic power to keep the barrier around the balrog up.
Finally we must congratulate Stendhal's artists, who have done a brilliant job over the last year. We had some artworks which we found ugly, or just outdated. So we have been painting our own, and sourcing some from other free projects like Stendhal. You probably noticed the grass getting texture, houses being rebuilt and flowerbeds being replanted for the last few releases. Well, we've finally finished redrawing the old art work and are really happy with the outcome.
2008-05-29 21:04:00
Gossip has been spreading about the precious nuggets of mithril found deep in ados mountains. Some say there is a man who can cast them into mithril bars, which are yet more precious. Some even say that a shield can be forged out of this amazing metal. It's up to you to discover if there is any truth in these rumours.
The chatterboxes of Faiumoni have had plenty more to talk about, from the controversial new ados barman, to the new attractions on Athor, and yet more fantastical rumours, of huge trees in female shapes that roam the earth ... For those with less mouth, more action, seek out the assassins' tower and pit your strengths against the best of the villains. Beware of the dragons!
Have you money to spend? The traders of you will be delighted to hear of the meat market in Ados, and new shops in Nalwor, Ados abandoned Keep, Amazon Island and many more exotic locations. Explore again areas you used to know well, you'd be surprised to see what has changed!
2008-02-14 11:59:00
Mr and Mrs Yeti have a sweet little ice cave below Semos Mountain. Be like Mr Yeti, keep your loved one sweet, with a red rose from Fleur in Kirdneh. While you're there, why not visit the museum, drink in the inn, go to the bank or even buy a house!
Perhaps your loved one likes cute cuddly animals? Then take a stroll around the farm east of Semos. It's full of cute piglets, goats, cows and little tiny mice.
Alone for Valentines? Go kill some dwarves! That'll help! The orcs in ados abandoned keep want to be rid of the mountain dwarves, so you'd even be doing them a favour. Perhaps retail therapy is what you need, in which case the Orcs in the keep can sell you good quality armor. Some say there's even better stuff deeper in the keep.
Enough of the blood and guts and back to a love story. Princess Esclara on Amazon island has locked up an ugly barbarian - and he wants to know why! She's not too happy either - are there secret feelings between them? Ok, so it's not quite Romeo and Juliet...
Lastly on the love theme, a gentle reminder that we want to help any new people who join our world. Hayunn Naratha has been employed as full time tutor of anyone new, which should help a lot, but remember if you do see anyone looking lost - help them! It's what makes the world go round.
2008-01-08 19:35:00
Three months ago a major new version of our engine Marauroa was released. With it came potential for new, exciting features for Stendhal. In this release we are testing the possibilities.
New kinds of data storage are possible, using a zone for storage and not just the player. Examples now in game are signs which can be rented in Semos City. Also that admin can jail players who are offline, and they can be freed even if the server is restarted inbetween. Finally there is now a way to view an image from the game client, and the first image in game is a map of Semos, which Monogenes can show any player needing help with directions.
2007-12-03 21:30:00
Semos is decorated for Christmas! Santa feels right at home when he drops in, on his travels around the island. Find him to get your Christmas gift. With such lovely rewards you shouldn't need our latest new feature, which is called 'grumpy' because it allows you to ignore messages from anyone but your buddies. Do /help to find out more.
The extra cold winter has brought out the ice and air elementals, and they've taught the fire, water and earth elementals to toughen up as they have always been a little weak. How about you, do you wish to learn new secrets? Perhaps the secret of how to get past the lich and his lair? You will need a new skill for that, and the cunning to discover it yourself.
The world continues to expand, and get easier to travel across. There are now routes between the newer cities of Kalavan and Kirdneh, using the underground great caves as a shortcut past Fado forest. If you do explore above ground, look out for the forest nymphs - they don't get many visitors. In Kirdneh, you'll notice house numbers on all the doors. They're not ready for ownership yet but feel free to look around the city and chat to the locals.
Merry Christmas!
2007-11-15 21:50:00
Do you yearn for a faithful companion, a little beast who can stand up for himself? And just needs the occasional bit of meat to keep him happy? Then get your very own baby dragon and watch him grow wings. Of course, you'll need to find an egg from someone first... perhaps someone who lives or works amongst magicians?
Many houses have now been redecorated in Ados, ready to sell. Just make sure you're on good terms with the Ados residents, then talk to the estate agent in the Townhall. For those who own houses in Kalavan, and those who don't, will be able to enjoy the beautiful new city gardens. Perhaps you'll even make a new friend there.
2007-10-18 19:51:00
There's something 'huge' been happening in the world ... huge Fado great caves were discovered, full of cave trolls, madarams, and dragons. Huge creatures like dragons seem even bigger now that you can walk behind them. But nothing is so huge as the Imperial Army, with the huge Kalavan Castle and the huge underground city of Sedah.
There's something 'strange' been happening, too, like the strange rainbow beans to take you to a strange dream world. There is a strange magic city full of wizards and witches, healers and sorcerers. And there is the strange fact that suddenly, your ability to defend yourself, depends also on your experience of the world.
There's something 'sweet' developing: sweet little cats you can care for, and sweet homes in Kalavan City, which you can buy to live in. Sweet too are the princesses who give you quests, and there are sweet treats: pineapples, coconuts and fairy cakes.
There's something 'wild' out there: wild women on the Amazon Island; wild creatures whose habits are now a lot less predictable; and wildly animated tiles.
Finally, there's something safe in knowing that your bank chest is more secure. There's safety too in the knowledge that if you're unhappily married, you can now divorce. And if you want to stay safe, you can get information about any creature you like, from the famed warrior Starkad. Perhaps one day you will have fought as much as him ...
2007-08-13 20:15:00
Prison breakout! Duergars swarmed the prison below the dwarven kingdom of Kanmararn. Will you join the dwarves or leave them to their fate?
Explorers coming from the west are talking about new places they have found. They say that if you get past the Devil Queen, you will find yourself in a place called Kikareukin which is floating in the sky! But be careful as Kikareukin is not just a walk in the clouds...
If you have some spare axes, Woody the Woodcutter living east of Fado might want to buy them. While over there you may bump into leprechauns and clurichauns, though they'll try to protect their lucky charms. The final piece of advice before you enter again to Faiumoni: beware, only the very strong should enter Oni castle battle the strange purple creatures!
2007-07-28 20:32:32
The Server is now back up and running again.
We are still recovering functionality of postman, and of admin scripts. Thanks for your continuing patience and support.
2007-07-26 23:45:02
We're currently experiencing some hardware problems. The server is temporarily down.
We are sorry for the inconvenience. We are working on the problem.
2007-06-29 23:32:02
You can try this for a quick fix.
Download stendhal client and start it with the following command line:
java -Dsun.java2d.pmoffscreen=false -Xmx200m -jar stendhal-XX.jar
or with:java -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true -Xmx200m -jar stendhal-XX.jar
(XX is whichever stendhal you run with, maybe 0.58 or 0.61 ..)We are sorry for the inconvenience.
This problem is caused by a glitch in X11 pixmap and alpha usage in combination with java runtime. We are working on a solution and will inform you when the issue is solved and this work around is not needed anymore.2007-06-22 18:53:09
The houses in Kobold City (known to the Kobolds as Wofol) have opened their doors. Meet Wrvil the weapons trader, and a mountain dwarf who needs errands running. You had better hope noone asks you for anything which requires going to the swamps outside Ados - the creatures there have mutated into things much nastier. The resident ghost over in Ados haunted house is just the opposite - very friendly and she wants to know about other spirits like her. Just make sure you don't get caught in giant webs in the basement ...
Elsewhere in Ados, the barracks buy some of the very best equipment around, and pay good prices. There must be a general shortage of armor, because the Quartermaster of Mithrilbourgh army also requires boots and helmets. Or if you find mainly cloaks in your travels, don't waste them, take them to a seamstress who uses them to make sails for ships.
Talking of ships, if you're on the Athor ferry, remember to fish for mackerel. You need that to make tasty fish pies! Find out the other ingredients from Linzo in Fado. And if you're a fan of fishing, why not try wishing? Look for wells with a sparkle to them, and make a wish. Good luck!
2007-06-04 11:53:11
We have had another raid this weekend, this time dwarves raised their arms on the coast of Or'ril. Even poor Lich was scared.
We have recorded all the event so you can see it and know what you miss :).
Part 1: Players reaching stage.
Part 2: Players defeating dwarves
If you want to share your screenshots with us, send a JPG with good quality to me
2007-05-29 17:25:06
Between many they were able to defeat our Balrog ( a weak version ). Some people say there is one player that can defeat Balrog solo...
If you want to share your screenshot with us, send a JPG with good quality to me
2007-05-27 21:58:03
Today, it has been a long day.
Ados, Semos and Nalwor have been under attack, but our brave warriors have saved them again.
Julius shouted and ran away when barbarians came to attack Ados. Lucky that eusebius and others were around. Eusebius got an enhanced Ugmash from the mayor of Ados as a reward for his help in saving Ados.
Mareion asked us for help when the drows started attacking Nalwor. Evil drows even summoned a cursed giant spider. Many heroes came to defeat them, and again Vesper won, but kindly passed the award to Juan_1990_16 who received a black_halberd.
Just after that, goblins started to attack Semos, but they were not alone. They came with the giant Tobuk, a friend of the goblins, but again, a horde of Semos citizens came and defeated them.
You can be our next hero! :)
2007-05-22 21:03:56
Semos mines have been excavated deeper, producing new rocks and stones which were used to rebuild many tired looking buildings. All the citizens think it looks much better and even redecorated indoors as a result. However, digging the mines has opened up new passages and caverns ... they are no longer just the home of cute and cuddly kobolds, as here dwell the Chaos warriors! Also swarming the mines is a whole outpost of the Mithrilborough army, not to mention the mountain dwarves and a much, much, much greater beast. The mountain dwarves are famed blacksmiths - so all the creatures and monsters in Fauimoni traded in the things they fight with - clubs, armor and shields - for better versions. You may find that a monster drops something better than you expected - but he will not want to drop it often.
The bridge to Fado is open! Discover the delights of the city known across the land as the home of celebrations - of good food and marriage. Find a pretty maiden with a quest for you, and learn about karma from a wizardess. Over in Nalwor, it is less peaceful. The dark elves are still making trouble, and the mayor needs your help. Do what he asks and a special protective prize will be yours. You can fear less from death - but remember, there are now many more who wish to take life from you.
2007-04-22 12:28:03
The log of our online meeting is available at /docs/200704_meeting.txt.
You can check at Wiki decisions taken and matters that are still to be decided.2007-04-19 09:21:23
Dear Stendhal gamers,
our public server is suffering from internet connection problems today and so is down. However, we expect the issues to be resolved within the next 12 to 24 hours so keep checking back here to keep updated!NOTE: As 20:12 GMT+1 the problem has been fixed. Thanks you for your patience.
2007-04-14 19:45:14
Ados has expanded! The city dwellers are getting desperate for supplies, so the mayor begs your help. As you return, beware of getting drawn into the great caves under Ados Rock. The brave who venture there talk of giants, red dragons and black death. You'll need to face the giants if you want to earn the immortal sword, and anyone who can defeat the black death may loot some rare shadow armament. If the ados caves don't scare you enough, try the drow tunnels. Are the dark elves planning an attack on Nalwor?
If you want to get away from it all, take a break on Athor Island. It's got it all: sun, sea, sand, oh and cannibals, crocodiles and minotaurs ... Both hard workers and holiday makers can help out Leander. He needs pizza delivered across Faiumoni. Get it there on time and you'll get a tidy tip. Perhaps you'll choose to store your cash in Nalwor bank - once you've earned the key, that is. Are you fed up of all those keys jangling in your bag? Then get your keyring fixed, a blacksmith should be able to help.
Thanks to some dedicated cleaning, the waters of Faiumoni are now fresh and full of life. Fish have come back to the surface, and if you look carefully you may see glints of gold. Even the air has had a spring clean, so that sounds travel to your ear fresher, and clearer. Enjoy! And fight bravely ...
If you are a hardcore player or if on the other hand you are new to Stendhal you will find helpful the Atlas
2007-04-09 10:56:47
There was great joy recently in Semos Town Square when Carmen got a bit confused and started selling large amounts of potions for negative amounts of money. All sellers have been given new instructions and bigger abacuses to calculate on.
Any adventurers who profited from the confusion have returned their extra items, as they are all honest players. (No players were harmed in the enforcement of this rule...)
High level players have had a boost recently. With the level cap of 99 removed, players over this found that they earned only 1 XP for even Black Dragons! Now, instead of earning 1 XP, or full XP for every creature (a short term fix) they now earn full XP only for creatures over level 75. A fair solution!
2007-03-10 20:41:39
The elves are back to their homes and businesses in Nalwor City, and they're pretty mad that humans have been visiting! Tread carefully next time you make a trip. Maybe you'll be tempted to travel far, now that walking long distance is enabled by double clicking your minimap. Perhaps you'll visit the Rat City? A careless ratman has left a door open...
For those who just want a quiet life, they'll find that ctrl+r clears all those annoying chat bubbles. That's not recommended in the middle of a trade on the new trading table in Semos Town Hall. You want to have your wits about you for bargaining the best prices. While you're in the Town Hall - go chat to the Mayor, as he now tells you exactly how long to wait till your next daily monster quest. He might ask you to kill some of the troublesome bandits on the road from Semos to Ados?
More than trouble lurks beneath the graveyard in Semos Plains North ... vampires roam the Catacombs. If you want to hear the stories, go to the ancient dwarf blacksmith in the mines of Or'ril mountain. And if you're brave enough, begin the quest for the Vampire Sword.
2007-03-04 18:49:12
The adventurers met for a pub quiz tonight in Semos Tavern. 16 people played, from level 10 up to level 91, led by quizmaster superkym. vesper is the brain box of the evening, he certainly had the fastest fingers, and Cutler deserves an honourable mention. Someone1234 impressed us by getting the final question right. We celebrated with a group photo and beers all round!
Here are the questions for you to try at home:
How much does a home scroll cost?
Name a creature who drops katana
What is Ceryl's job?
How many grain makes one bag of flour?
What is the top prize at Ricardo's table?
What items does a new player start with?
Where does Hackim Easso work?
How much can you sell a sword to Xin Blanca for?
Who makes sandwiches?
Where do 'death' live?
What's the missing girl from Ados called?
Who is the housewife with a rat problem?
What herb did Ilisa need to make Tad better?
Name a poisonous creature
What is the name of the berry that sheep eat?2007-01-30 22:53:21
The Mayor of Semos made a tour of Faumoni recently to discuss administrative issues. He has deemed that any rewards bestowed upon an adventurer should be used only by he who earned them. In the Mayor's tour he noticed some irregularities in the terrain: gardeners and architects have been employed to fix these. He also taught better use of language to many of his citizens.
Thanatos got approval for some changes to the deathmatch. He thinks it should only reward the player who starts it. He complained of cowards who disappear mid match, without the proper procedure of begging 'bail' from him. These might experience problems in future. Frequent visitors to the arena may have noticed the improved intelligence of black dragons and been relieved they don't fight them themselves. Well, the dragons have taught their secrets to every creature on the island, even the smallest and slowest, so now everything is a lot smarter.
Mayor Sakhs' visit didn't cover every spot on the island. He'd heard reports of a heathen outdoor temple on the mountain pass between Orril and Semos, but he claims religion is not his business. Perhaps he was afraid of powerful demons there? He also didn't venture past the 'Keep Out' sign in Ados after hearing strange wails and bangs inside. The children in Ados park also keep away from that house, although they did complain of boredom. Maybe they'd like something to play with ... Someone else who is keen for new 'toys' is Balduin. He's been told about new kinds of monster and he wants to add their weapons to his collection.
2006-12-19 17:38:12
It is one year since the first adventurers arrived on the Island of Faiumoni and explored the town of Semos, Or'ril Castle and the elvish Nalwor Forest. Now, the road to Ados City is open!
Everyone is invited to come meet the population of Ados. With the knowledge from these new people, Zynn Iwuhos the librarian has been hard at work. He's made detailed descriptions of all weapons and armor listed in his library, and a roll of honor which mentions all important people on Faiumoni.
Ados City has bakers who make pies, to sustain heroes in battle. These will be needed, as an experiment of Haizen's has gone wrong and dragons seem much more cunning than they've ever been! At the deathmatch arena in Ados, there is no place to hide ....
2006-10-31 19:58:47
The deserted Semos Mine Town is remembered regularly with a big celebration: the Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks! Come and join in, get a costume and play puzzles! Don't forget that kobolds and slime still lurk in the mines, so don't have too much fun...
This version introduces the following new features:
- improved language of nearly all NPCs
- smart updater for future versions (so that you do not have to download the complete client on every new version)
- Semos Mine Town Revival Weeks
- new quest: reverse arrow
- Costume Party
- you can make a friend there
- game masters can get invisible (but there name is still displayed)
- game masters can walk through walls
Enjoy!2006-10-01 18:57:19
The latest version of our game is ready! This version introduces the following new features:
- added dice gambling in Semos Tavern with golden trousers as the jackpot
- fixed lag because of broken key handling on X11 (Linux)
- display other players on minimap
- made jail accessible to normal players
- added additional clothes and hair styles for females
- changed our default server to stendhal.game-host.org
- converted admin / game master commands from groovy to reloadable java classes
Enjoy!2006-09-03 15:47:29
The latest version of our game is ready! This version introduces the following new features:
- added regrowing grain fields which can be harvested
- added a windmill and an NPC who mills flour from grain
- added a bakery and an NPC who bakes bread from flour
- gave archer elf and archer kobold something to shoot
- made iron casting take time
Enjoy!2006-08-26 19:10:02
A small update to Marauroa (the server) which fixes a problem with socket.write() blocking for several minutes.
2006-08-14 17:44:23
Thanks to all the hard work of the Arianne team (go to server: irc.freenode.net channel : arianne to meet some of them) there is a new version of both the client and server.These versions fix a large number of issues, improve performance, introduce some new maps, a new quest and even some new features. A manual is found at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual.
2006-06-21 20:01:51
This release close several bugs that have arise after 0.50 release. Mainly, we speeded up client start time and connect will take now just between one and three seconds. Also we fixed strange cases where avatars keep on game after logout and a worse bug that lead to personal chests robbery.
On the good side we have also closed a bug that allowed item duplication and improved the deathmatch for not to be so easy.
Also we added a new quest called Wood on the forest.Hope you enjoy it. Visit us at irc.freenode.net#arianne for a chat.
2006-06-18 23:59:12
We have been informed that Murpe is not able to host our server anymore so we return it to stendhal.ath.cx.
Keep in mind that the server may go down in seven days as I go on holidays.2006-06-16 21:02:34
Two months without a release! OMG! My excuses for the delay ;-). But we are here back again and with a very special release for all you: 0.50.
This release is very important because we consolidate all the work of the previous versions. We have finally fixed the MacOS display bug ( welcome Mac players! ), added magic scrolls for returning to Semos, added several new interesting quests and added Groovy scripts for some quests ( very interesting possibilities here ).
Also we have fixed many bugs that you complained about and added some new areas on the map.We still need your help to add content to world as items, creatures, quests, maps, bugs, suggestions or simply as a hardcore player. Please write us if you are interested in helping.
2006-05-06 12:44:17
I get marrried in two days so I will turn off my computer, so from May, 24 to May, 29 the server will be down, and it may go down again until June, 12.
We do need someone that can host the server 24/7 during summer because it is prone that I won't be able to handle it.All it is needed for server hosting is:
- Java 1.5
- Stendhal
- Apache and PHP
- MySQL
- Optionally sshd to allow developers remote update of the server.Bandwidth usage move around 1GB/day on release days to 150MB/day on common days. Anyone willing to help please email me to arianne_rpg _at_ users _dot_ sourceforge _dot_ net
2006-04-18 14:13:00
This release should have happened two weeks above, but Sourceforge CVS failure and holidays took it out of schedule. We have added a buddy system so you can keep in touch with your friends, blood pools as a result of fights, player age :), new items and a new area near Ados called the swamp.
We also removed some offending GFX, hide admin commands, fixed sheeps and simplified Xin Blanca items list.Next version is prone to take a few weeks of time because I really want to work now on GUI as most issues now are fixed and working.
2006-03-24 00:01:54
This release fix LOTS of bugs that we have recieve from and add some new interesting features like doors and keys, add two new big game areas: Wofol, the kobold's city that is suitable for team play of players around level 10-20 and N'mon, the lich fortress under the Orril castle, that is only for the most brave players.
Another feature that has been requested and has been added is a storage to safely place items: you can have a look to it at bank.
After this version we will work now on fixing minor details and improving GUI, so that we can finally introduce a new RP system and reach 0.50.
We still need your help to add content to world as items, creatures, quests, maps, bugs, suggestions or simply as a hardcore player. Please write us if you are interested in helping.NOTE: Create account has been broken. If you have had problems, please create a new account now. We have done a server side only release that fixs the bug, just in case you are interested in running your own server: Server side only 0.47
2006-03-10 16:26:38
Again, on our weekly releases approach we present Stendhal 0.46. This version mostly fixs bugs and add a new interesting quest. We have fixed the sheep bug that made sheep to be transparent. All animations are now fixed, so if you see a strange area please report it as a bug.
I have also rebalanced again creatures, please complain if you find them to hard. For top level players we have added Dragons and liches so they can party and enjoy :).
There are some new items to fight against these formidable enemies: plate armors, golden armors, hammers, scythe, fire sword, ...
Also per request Quests has been made simpler, so saying hi once you have started the quest trigger it.
Finally we have added several new areas that you will love: Orril castle and Semos mines, and inside Semos city you have now a Bank and a Storage.
We still need your help to add content to world as items, creatures, quests, maps, bugs, suggestions or simply as a hardcore player. Please write us if you are interested in helping
NOTE: I have just fixed a bug related to sheeps that made players keep on world freezed. Sorry for the problem but keep in mind that if you don't report the problem it takes us more to notice it.
2006-03-03 18:48:19
Welcome to the biggest better ever release of Arianne.
This release of stendhal features the biggest map we have ever had on the seven years of development. It has around 70 zones, many of them still to be populated. We also added around 50 new monsters so the monsters now range from level 0 to level 100.
We added ranged combat with bow and arrows, and monsters can also use it.
Stendhal now has a Quest and Scripts system (done in java) to create interesting Quests and make important game effects using the scripts. Be sure to give a try to Tad and Ceryl about their quests. We need your help to code more and more quests, so if you write Java contact us.Also I fixed a nasty bug on GUI that messed up the inventory. Now it won't happen again. Thanks for waiting.
Unfortunatelly this release isn't named 0.50 because we still miss some important things:
- More quests and NPCs.
- Better AI System.
- Improved A* to handle in a fasted way the path finding.
- Magic system.
- Skills system.
- Improved GUI.Have a try to Stendhal! If you like it you will really love helping us to create content for it: maps, items, monsters, quests, ...
2006-01-29 20:29:28
Again, we are releasing our weekly bug fixes release. This release adds:
. Fixed Drink and food queue so you can consume potions even if full.
. Speed up client
. Changed sync event management so game is less laggy.
. Can buy several items in a batch ( buy 5 potion )
. Fixed sync error. Should happen less oftenly.
. Items bought are automatically stacked.
. Sheeps heals themselves slowly.
. Admins are now denoted with yellow name.
. NPC don't say bye if you are not talking to it.
. Portals are walkable now. It looks better
. Giant rats corpses are bigger.
. Monsters does talk ( but not chat ).
. Reworked map data structure. It is more organized now.
. Added ambient sounds.
. Fixed ATK and DEF loose on death.
. Added new areas: Library and Orril dungeon
. Added new monster: Black bearThis release also ships a new version of the map editor. Just use update.bat to sync your map editor with CVS. We are going to need TONS of help to complete maps for 0.50. Please join us at irc.freenode.net #arianne and help us with the task.
2006-01-22 23:01:15
Just one week after the 0.42 release we have done another bug fixes release.
To make the release interesting again we have added four new zones and eight new monsters that will make happy to our powergamers.Keep sharing with us your opinions.
2006-01-06 14:30:51
Thanks to all of you for the bugs reports.
This release is the add some exciting features as different food pieces that heals at different rates, add potions to heal yourself fast on deep dungeons, venom creatures and poisons, add a new sound system. But this release is very important because of what it fixs: we have fixed the Timeout synchronization request that was due to ISP UDP packet size limits, we have also improved anticheaters features and dead is now something to take more serious.The bad news is that we don't feature new zones on this release. We need help with map making to make more areas and improve existing ones, also if you have reached level 15 or above your gameplay experience won't be as good because almost nothing will give xp now. Please if it is the case, help up to create new creatures and new exciting areas. Join #arianne at irc.freenode.net to talk about this.
Have fun with this release and report bugs you may find. There is still a known bug at players inventory, so if you drag an item and drop on the same position the inventory will be incorrect and you won't be able to use it unless you change the zone or drop all the items on the floor and equip it again.
2005-12-20 12:36:19
Ok, don't panic!
This release of Stendhal is seriously the best one we have ever release. No hype really!. All of our beta testers have agree that the game is even fun!.
So join Stendhal, create an account (you can do it now using the client itself) and give it a try. Our beta process has take down several bugs, but surely there are tons of them waiting for you to find them.This release adds many things: several new monsters, several new zones ( three times bigger map ), new RP system, new Items, better way of interacting with NPC, less bugs and a new GUI!.
Also we need your help for creating new maps or fixing existing ones, and we need your help for creating new quests.
So come on, join us in the exciting development of a multiplayer online RPG!.NOTE: We have removed ALL the accounts, so you have to create them again. And you can use our official game server or the BETA one.
2005-12-18 11:00:18
It has been a long month, but finally thanks to the efforts of Anders, Steve and Matthias the 0.40 release is almost here!.
To avoid problems that we have had in the past, we are going to run a private ( but open ) BETA server of the game. Please join us, create an account and play the game at BETA server and in case you find a problem, please report it at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=browse&group_id=1111&atid=1011112005-10-26 17:17:03
Due to the huge amount ( thanks everybody! ) of bug reports recieved, we have decided to publish this bug fixed version.
Next release is going to delay for at least two weeks because we are in process of changing several things on Stendhal.
Have a look at changes at: new items, creatures and actions guide2005-10-23 12:36:19
As you can read on our previous news item, we have added money to game, so now in addition of gaining XP by killing monsterm you can inspect them to obtain too money. You can by now spend your money on the tavern weapon's seller.
This release is pretty stable, but many of the features are hacked, so we are going to enter in a refactoring to increase code quality that will surely delay a new release for at least 2-3 weeks. But in case you find any problem or a bug please tell us.
We have decide to skip the addition of the new zones and the addition of chests ( but on the city ) because we need this version to be released as soon as possible, so we can start the refactoring today. So in order to speed up the development we would need help completing the maps and adding items and chests.
Please help us create content, items, monsters, maps and quest for Stendhal. Have a tour around our new items, creatures and actions guide.
This release of stendhal is also (again) together with a release of Marauroa: 1.11, that adds capacity limit to slots and fix a bug at slot assignID procedure.
2005-10-20 19:22:38
We have been idling for a few months, but in a few weeks we are doing again great improvements on the game and the gameplay. Matthias added a minimap so you can now orientate yourself on our dungeons and not get lost again. Also I completed the inventory stuff, so now you can use chests and move items between slots, chests and floor freely.
But the star feature of this upcoming release is the addition of corpses that contains items like shields, swords, armors and money. Yes! you read it correctly! Money. At last we have money in game to buy new stuff, to buy sheep or simply to show off :P.
We plan to add ( at last too ) several new zones:
- Valley
- City road
- Rat dungeon
- Deeper dungeon
- Orc palace
- Orc jailThis new release should happen in 4-5 days as we have to polish several details in order to make simpler the usage of the new changes.
2005-09-25 11:42:53
After our summer holiday, we are back with a bug fixed releases of Marauroa and Stendhal. No estimation of next release but we do really hope to do again another big release per month.
We would love to get some feeback on any problem you may have. Inventory support is quite experimental though.
2005-09-17 02:41:12
Holidays are over as summer is right now. During this two months, Stendhal and Marauroa has shown little progress, although a really nice effort has been done to port our logging system to log4j and to create an API in order to reuse Stendhal code base for other games.
The first task is complete and the results are simply awesome. Moving to log4j should have been done a great time before.
Unfortunately our second task; create an API for Stendhal is not so advanced, anyway we are sure and proud that soon we will show some very interesting results.Meanwhile I am considering to release a 0.35 version that will add a basic inventory support and fix the ton of bugs most of you have pointed: mainly our lag problem. This release should happen along the next week if everything keeps working as it is now.
2005-07-08 12:30:16
This release is a bug fixes over 0.30. We have fixed a bug at statistics system, speed up combat, ease creature killing, no more drop item bug, move item in inventory, fixed bug at Weapon seller, fix render order, added Giant rat, added three new areas: valley and rat dungeon (two levels), fixed a problem with long sentences, changed sprites to PNG, added Bag slot (1 item only) and modifiable server name at login text area.
Unfortunately some of these changes are server related and we are right now unable to reset stendhal server, so we will need to wait up to Jul, 20 for the real update.
Meanwhile we will keep developing new areas and the inventory system.
As before please report problems or suggestions.IMHO I find the actual combat system too easy to kill monsters, so perhaps I do a rebalance again. Combat system is going to be replaced by a skill based system.
A complete game manual exists at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual.
2005-07-03 13:29:51
Muahahaha! ok!, 0.30 is here! I know you have been waiting it. We have added finally the long awaited items system and you can wear them, by now only a club, a sword, a shield and a leather armor. We will add more on next releases.
To get new items you need to buy them from Xin Blanca at the tavern.This release unfortunately doesn't adds inventory support because we need a GUI framework to do it. I am actually working on it and hope to have it designed in one week so we can write a specification and start coding it.
This release also features a new RP system where weapons have effect in combat, so don't forget to wear them.
We will really love to read from any problem you may have with the game or any suggestion you may have.A complete game manual exists at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual.
2005-07-02 15:26:14
Version 0.3 of JMaPacman has been released. Now you can eat Powerpills which give you the power to eat ghosts for a short time. Also there are fruits which give much more points than anything else. Some Bugs have been fixed and there are 2 new maps on the public server to play on.
Download JMaPacman here
Try to beat the Top Score at our Public Server
2005-06-27 14:19:52
Yes, it's Version 0.2 ;)
If you missed 0.1 : JMaPacman is a Java-Port of MaPacman which is a Multiplayer Pacman Game.
With 0.2 different Zones have been added. Now you can hide from the Ghosts by moving to another zone. Also there are superdots which give more points than normal ones.Download JMaPacman here.
What's your Top Score ? Try it out at http://jmapacman.mpc-donkey.de
NOTE: This released is marked as 0.02 instead of 0.2, it will be fixed for next release.
2005-06-05 00:57:35
Hello Barrapunteros!. We have been forced to release a bug fixes version of Stendhal due the amount of players that are going to try it.
This release fixs the corpses problem and other majot problems like Creatures AI.
Also this release adds a initial support for items: a shield ( that you can't wear ) and corpses that can be moved.A complete game manual exists at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual.
2005-06-02 16:01:52
I have complete the map editor package. I release it with several tilesets and several examples maps, as well as a tutorial about how to use it at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/HowToUseTiledToCreateStendhalMaps. Tilesets are not complete, so please if you need a new tile, draw it and send it to us.
PS: Dungeon 001 is uncompleted and I am working on it. We need dungeons, many dungeons!!!
Happy hacking!
Also Tiled 0.5 has a bug so you need to close and open it again to load a new file.2005-06-05 00:57:35
Yes! We are back!. This release adds the set outfit feature, so that you can personalize your character. On next releases we are going to change the graphics, so please wait for content submitions. Some of you have been complaining about wolves are easy, so we have added boars, trolls, cobras, orcs, kobolds, goblins and ogres. We have added also added a new dungeon, four times bigger than the actual one, where lives a NPC what will give you 2000 XP points for your full grow sheep.
This release also fix a nasty bug on linux that makes the gameplay awful, now it works perfect.
We need now players, dozens of players to test the server stability and limits. We know game "works" and we know it is fun, but we need to know how many players can we handle ( actually there is a soft limit of 64 ). A complete game manual exists at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual. PS: Don't forget to dress yourself.
We are talking about replacing RP system with D20. We would love to listen to your opinion at Forums.2005-06-02 16:01:52
I have complete the map editor package. I release it with several tilesets and several examples maps, as well as a tutorial about how to use it at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/HowToUseTiledToCreateStendhalMaps. Tilesets are not complete, so please if you need a new tile, draw it and send it to us.
PS: Dungeon 001 is uncompleted and I am working on it. We need dungeons, many dungeons!!!
Happy hacking!
Also Tiled 0.5 has a bug so you need to close and open it again to load a new file.2005-05-30 17:59:34
This release is a very important milestone in the development of Arianne goals: creating a flexible open source multiplayer games middleware.
We have managed to build a system that is able to run several types of games: turn based and adventures games with a awesome performance. Send state of the game to players with a minimum bandwidth usage, storing players on database with a easy to query SQL tables. The actual system is able to manage thousands of zones and so create an almost limitless world. Now ariannexp will be ported to this 1.00 technology and soon Gladiators and mapacman will be ported and online again. All the documentation is updated to this new branch, and we are in process of completing our 2nd book: How to write adventure games using Arianne. This milestone completes inmediate Marauroa goals, so now we will now center all our efforts on clients: stendhal, mapacman and gladiators. By developing more these new needs will appear that will be done on next releases. Let's know what you need of Marauroa!.2005-05-30 17:56:01
This release is another bug fixes over 0.11 release. But we have also some things you have been asking for:
Please keep reporting bugs , help us make Stendhal better. Next release will feature a new tileset and character customization. So please stop creating new maps. I will release an updated map editor in less than a week.
- A game manual at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual
- A small GUI
- Three new zones: forest, tavern and afterlive
- Changed RP values for Rat, Cave Rat and Wolf to make game more fun
- Several other minor improvements.2005-05-23 16:10:01
Thanks everyone for the extensive bug reports. I have done a release that fix most of your complains:
Please keep the bug report, help us make Stendhal better. The map editor is here. Please help us create maps for stendhal ( maps shouldn't be bigger than 256x256 ). We need dungeons and open plains areas where to place new things like villages, cities, etc...
- Fixed a severe bug that happens when a creature respawn over a player.
- Disabled the attack yourself feature
- Added reward for player killing
- Correctly assign XP for sheep
- NPC don't repeat text on zone change any more
- Better rendering order
- Corpses are now under everything
- Improved client speed2005-05-20 14:28:23
Another great release of Stendhal!. Don't get it wrong! This release is playable and fun. We just need to make the world bigger and add new monsters and here your collaboration is a MUST. Help us to create new levels and add new monsters and quests.
This release implements a better path finding, add more NPCs and a new level: dungeon.
- Add Rat and Cave Rat entity
- Added a balanced RP values
* ATK, DEF and HP values at http://stendhal.game-server.cc/StendhalCombatSimulation.xls
* Level values at http://stendhal.game-server.cc/StendhalLevelSimulation.xls
- You gain XP by killing creatures and completing quests.
- Add new Sheep GFX
- Better Sheep AI and Creature AI
- A map editor here. Please help us create maps for stendhal ( maps shouldn't be bigger than 128x128 ). Use the existing maps or template as a way to learn. Your help makes Stendhal better!. Finally the tasks written on the previous news item are still open and needing attention.
Also if you can write properly English we would really love help to write a game manual at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual.2005-05-12 13:56:23
This new release of Stendhal adds very important features like:
Finally the tasks written on the previous news item are still open and needing attention.
- Add wolf entity
- Make real combat system
- Creatures can die
- Add new Sheep GFX
- Better Sheep AI
- Compiled map editor here. Please help us create maps for stendhal ( maps shouldn't be bigger than 128x128 ). Use the existing maps as a way to learn. Your help makes Stendhal better!.
Also if you can write properly English we would really love help to write a game manual at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual.2005-05-07 20:03:55
A new week, almost a new release :)
Also the CVS code has been cleaned and refactored, so Client is now clearer than ever. If you plan to create a game using Arianne, Stendhal would be a great base for your client. :) On the near future (1 month or so) I will stabilize Stendhal development and start again all the documentation process that means:
I have added combat to Stendhal and HP bars, and a basic in game GUI.
Release should happen soon, exactly at the same moment I assign coherent RP values to entities.
- Document all the code.
- Fix, update and improve Wiki Documents.
- Complete Stendhal Design document
- Complete and release our new Stendhal book.2005-04-28 16:33:54
These are two small releases but very important in the development of Arianne.
On Marauroa we have fix a bug that has been there since 0.30 release and that was related to the way MySQL managed transactions, also we added a method to request synchronization from a unsynced client so you should expect now a better gameplay. On Stendhal we have added A*, fixed a bug with Sheep weight due to signed/unsigned, improved Sheep movement, added Patrol and follow path action, fixed collision detection area, changed Game Chat dialog so that it opens with Ctrl+L, NPC counts sheeps sold and bought, client reconnect on out of sync, a single text line is visible now, now combat icon is centered on the bottom right corner and finally optional collision detection boxes. Out next steps are:
- Add wolf entity
- Make combat real
- Add currency to game
- Add new Sheep GFX
- Initial character customization Finally the tasks written on the previous news item are still open and needing attention.2005-04-17 13:21:01
This is the first release of Stendhal that has the tag playable (PLAYABLE).
I am actually in need of someone with RP gaming experience that wants to help me to create a simple game system based on S6S and give correct values to entities values. There are three open tasks that are of vital importance for Stendhal:
You can walk, chat, attack, buy and sell sheeps, change zones, request help, etc...
- Create a game manual at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/StendhalManual
- Define the entities RP values and the RP general guidelines, like how to attack, how fast, how fast to move, how is allowed to attack to, etc...
- Complete the manual about how to use Tiled to create maps for stendhal and add screenshots to it. Perhaps you would like to help us close some tasks related to Stendhal or review with us the design document.2005-04-17 13:21:01
This release adds secure login feature as well as fixs a bug at JDBC Database class that didn't allowed a RPObject to be correctly stored.
You have a complete step by step guide at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/HowToBuildMarauroa2005-04-08 20:31:01
A new emergency release of Marauroa that fix several important bugs, the main one is the 100% CPU usage due to multithread send feature.
You have a complete step by step guide at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/HowToBuildMarauroa2005-04-05 20:12:01
Our second release of Stendhal, and again it is not intended to be playable (NO PLAYABLE). You can walk, chat, collide, move from one zone to another, talk to NPC, attack other players and our dummy, but it lacks of the quality to consider it playable.
This release also features a new map editor using Tiled with a write only plugin to create Stendhal maps, on CVS you can access our actual maps and the tileset used to create them... help is appreciated to build bigger and better maps :) We also added a GUI to Stendhal that makes simpler to login to server, and there is a Java Webstart feature. We are working 110% on creating new GFX: samoa is creating a sheep and a wolf ( you can see it at Forums ).
Next steps are towards completing the RP system, and increasing the NPC interaction, and also fixing a strange bug that make game to work only sometimes ( most of them ). On the meanwhile you would like to help us close some tasks related to Stendhal or review with us the design document. There is still no public server for Stendhal...2005-04-03 20:31:01
This release changes some interfaces to suit in a better way the game development.
You have a complete step by step guide at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/HowToBuildMarauroa
If you plan to use Marauroa, you should update to this release in order to get it working. Soon I will update the API guides to show these changes.2005-03-07 15:04:36
After a full weekend of work, I have added a GUI to Stendhal. It is a bit basic but useful enough to make the game playable.
Next step is about adding attack and heal actions and make multizone works in a more intuitive way.
The point is to add *slowly* new features to build a complete game as soon as possible. You can read the complete plan at our Wiki in StendhalObjectives
BTW I keep begging for help to close these tasks :) The most important task to complete now it 100% related to GFX; we do need new GFX as explained in the Stendhal tasks.2005-03-03 20:31:01
This release of Marauroa closes a few bug fixes that make server work abnormally: a bug at RPServerManager, a bug at PlayerEntryContainer and a important bug at RPWorld.
You have a complete step by step guide at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/HowToBuildMarauroa
If you plan to use Marauroa, you should update to this release in order to get it working.2005-03-01 20:52:47
This is the first relese of Stendhal. It is not intended to be playable (NO PLAYABLE), it is just a tech demo of where you can walk, collide and change of zone.
As you know we drive our development by the guideline:release small, release often. Now we will start the development of the GUI ( anyone wanna help? ) and the rest of actions to make it playable. In around 1 month the game could be really playable. On the meanwhile you would like to help us close some tasks related to Stendhal or review with us the design document.
I can't really handle all by myself :)2005-02-19 14:09:34
After more than six months we have at last another release of Marauroa.
This release is incompatible with mapacman and gladiator. We are working to recover them as soon as possible.
This release sucessfully implements multizone features into Marauroa and has been splitted in several different packages: client, common and server.
Also this release features the new content streaming system that is being used in Stendhal.2005-02-16 10:10:13
As I said, development is showing some interesting results in a short period of time. The actual client allows the player to move and collide with objects that exists on world. Problem is that the client is a development work thing, and need to be refactored in order to be released, but I think that around 2 weeks could be something available.
AS preview, just a video: Stendhal 0.00 video (24") 266KB2005-01-29 13:41:51
Stendhal is our next game to test the new exciting features in Arianne: multizones and content transfer.
The idea behind Stendhal is a small multiplayer action game very similar to Nintendo's Zelda.
There is going to be no argument at all on it for a while, but it is a start to show that it works and works correctly.Once the development is stabilized we are going to need new GFX, music and some people to write something like a plot for the game, but that time is still a bit far. I will show more info when we have it working.2005-01-14 14:27:16
Again, a few months without news of the development. Again, sorry. Development keeps moving and marauroa advances at a slow but constant speed.
On the client side, I will begin to write a new Java2D client for our new game, Stendhal, so I will not update ariannexp for a while.
Waldemar ported all the code to Java 5.0 and I finally completed the change to multizone code. We both have changed the package structure of marauroa so that now it is clearer how to port it to J2ME or another language, as the server, client and commons parts are now independient packages.
I will try also to post more news if I have spare time.2004-11-11 17:23:42
I am really sorry for being away so much time. During this 3 months development of Arianne has been idle. I am going to do my best to get the multizone feature working (as it only needs testing and test cases to be written of them).
All the games have been taken down too because I have changed of computer and I prefer to move to the new Arianne. No timelines by now, but expect around january to see something interesting again. Sorry,
Miguel2004-08-28 20:11:54
Arianne has reached the age of 5 years. The way has been hard and full of unproductive periods. The multizone feature is being added now and should be complete in 1-2 weeks allowing us the development of Stendhal, which has already been started.
Soon I will write more about it.2004-08-03 16:41:16
Hehehe, you know, holidays!, I will shutdown the computer that run that arianne's server up to Aug, 15.
As a follow up, our next game is going to be called Stendhal, surely around Aug, 15 you will be able to read more about it.
We are still looking for a 24/7 hoster of our servers so we can avoid this situations.2004-07-28 18:34:48
Thanks to the HUGE amount of bugs report about mapacman I have been able to do this release. Mainly I have fixed the issue that many of you pointed about GUI and I have recoded the GUI from scratch to meet the requirements.
This released still miss the Create account from game feature that may be added on the next release of marauroa: no promises.
Also Many of you had problems with timeouts, so now mapacman doesn't handle timeouts, when you feel something is not working press ESC and you will be returned to the previous screen.2004-07-13 17:23:25
mapacman, our multiplayer online pacman clone, reaches its 0.90 version.
Now I will start working again on gladiators to make it a real game much like a simple Zelda clone. About if it is 2D or 3D is still to be decided, but it is prone that i finally goes after 2D because it is simpler to implement. This release features also a new ariannexp version that adds out of sync logic support at the pyarianne side.
This is the last release of mapacman because as you know our goal is to create a real online multiplayer RPG and not a pacman game :)2004-07-13 00:45:12
This version of Marauroa is a bug fixes release over 0.40 version, that consolidate our work on RPClasses and per player synchronization. Also I have fixed a few bugs on the mapacman script so game will be better.
This release creates base work for multizone system that will move us to Marauroa 1.0
As usual your bugs reports are appreciated.2004-07-09 12:56:53
It has been around 6 months and our website got outdated again.
Our goal has been to make the website clear, informative and easy to read, so please share with us your opinion at the Forum so we can all together build a better website for Arianne.
So after hiring an artist for website creation guidelines we have come with this design, that reuses mostly the previous website code2004-07-06 12:56:53
This version of mapacman features the new walls done by zzorn and adds correct scrolling. You still need to create an account at mapacman server.
I still need your bugs reports, as it is the only way of improving the game.2004-07-05 13:09:37
Marauroa is the arianne game server coded using Java and Python.
I also remind that the tutorial is now available at Wiki
This release is very important for us as it consolidate all the development of the last 9 months on a very stable and advanced release that adds per player synchronization, correct delta^2 perception system, classes of ingame objects and better python scripts.2004-07-01 12:56:13
I will shutdown server to develop the next versions of both marauroa and mapacman. They should be out before Monday.
Sorry for the inconvenience.2004-06-18 16:14:02
This new version of mapacman features a bigger map, that is around 8 times bigger than the 0.02 map, a scrollable view and new animations and graphics for mapacman done by zzorn. On server side there are some changes on the way that will be released perhaps over July, 1. The most important are RPClass is finally working as expected and mapacman code has been optimized.
2004-06-08 20:11:02
The bug about background clearing and the bug about TAB on the main screen were fixed. The player is now different than the rest of the pacmans, and they now have animations. You can see your score at the bottom of the screen.
Next version of mapacman will feature a 10 times bigger map, more ghosts and a ssssurprissssse
By the way, take extra care with ghost it is too dangerous.2004-06-04 20:53:37
It has been a lot of work, but finally everything is up and running:
- Marauroa 0.36 Real pacman support, improved the way password are stored in database, speeded up marauroa to make clients see their actions result sooner and added command line support for nullClient
- ariannexp 0.10.1 and pyarianne 0.10.1 Added compressed RPMap message support, improved autoconf and automake files and released a compiled version of pyarianne so you can develop your own games easily.
- Gladiators 0.08.5.3 Enjoy this one because it is the last version of Gladiators released. We are actually working hard to replace it with a python version of it that will work in a different way.
- mapacman 0.01 The first mapacman release. Please give it a try but don't eat the ghost :-)
2004-06-03 16:03:24
Although I were sure that it runs on Linux it is fun to see that it really does.
The HOWTO continue evolving into a great document at https://stendhalgame.org/wiki/How_to_write_games_using_Arianne
Here you can see the screenshot as taken by keiner. In a few days I hope to be able to release a first version, that is, when I complete the GUI.2004-06-01 01:05:41
mapacman continues evolving.
Now it is able to render the original pacman map, but with the extra thing that each object in screen is an Arianne RPObject, so everything is handled by Python code on the server using real Arianne RPObjects. We are using right now around 300 dots and 600 blocks representing walls. Turn times continue scaling perfectly with around 50 ms used of a turn time of 600 ms.2004-05-25 21:48:32
Today a major step has been taken on the Arianne development.
marauroa has also being released with this version featuring support for an initial mapacman server side game and in a few days a version of mapacman client will be released. I am very insterested on problems with ariannexp at linux side, and would be extremly thanked if those problems are fixed as well.
ariannexp has reach it second iteration and finally pyarianne is also working on Linux. So developing new clients and games is easier than ever, you can check it at Wiki at here.2004-05-18 17:53:54
No, mapacman is not vaporware. Simply that I don't have enough free time lately to work on it as much as I would need, anyway you can see here a preview of it.
Also remind you all that we are looking for developers for Arianne. More info here
On the mean time I have documented on the Wiki the tiny API used to connect to Arianne and a example of how to use the API.2004-05-18 17:15:32
server now execute turns on a soft timelimit of 64-100 ms almost with around 128 players inside, and we have added an out of sync message so that players can request synchronization with server in case of network problems.
2004-05-14 21:19:54
Today I have improved the speed of Marauroa for around 10 times faster than before by adding a cache of the static part of the perception that is send to each player.
This improvement allows Marauroa to be able to handle now hundred of players on a dedicated system.
We only need now to optimize the database subsystem to handle the amount of data.2004-05-12 14:59:24
There are several things moving on arianne right now:
We have setup a wiki to write several docs, if you think you can help us, please do it. Wiki link Marauroa is moving also in a secure strong way, we are improving the speed of the core game and fixing several things to make it run using as less CPU as possible, so we can increase the player limit actually works correctly with around 64 players. On the coming weekend we perhaps do release something. Keep reading.
pyarianne is a python wrapper module for arianne clients, so you can now develop arianne clients using Python and surely pygame :)2004-05-01 17:37:12
A little big step have been taken with Marauroa, this release integrate so many hot fixes and features that the list is long:
- Static part of the perception, that one that doesn't change depending of the player is precomputed, saving so many CPU cycles
- Added Python RP rules system, allowing to create a simple endless system
- Added mapacman game, our next milestone development
2004-04-30 20:26:16
At May, 1 - 18:00 UTC we will have an IRC meeting to talk about Arianne, Marauroa, Gladiators and mapacman state, and future path. The meeting is expected to last one hour. See you tomorrow at irc.freenode.net #arianne
2004-04-28 16:36:47
On a very experimental framework, I got a pacman to run the laberinth in a more or less ''inteligent'' way.
Now that I see that is working, I will start to port our designated existing game to use Arianne technology, and the winner is ... Njam. Njam is a a full-featured cross-platform pacman-like game written in C++ using SDL library that can be found at http://njam.sourceforge.net. To have a snack until a playable version arrives I send the output of actual java AI pacman client************* *+...***...+* *.**.***.**.* *.* ......*.* *.. ***** ..* *** *.. *** * * ..* * * *** *.*** * *+ *....C* ************* Collision at S --> Goes E Collision at E --> Goes N Backtracking detected --> Rotating
2004-04-27 18:07:03
Thanks to Steve I. , we all now have a manual for Gladiators. Please check it and as usual report any kind of problems that you may find.
Manual is at Documentation: manual2004-04-21 15:25:46
This version of marauroa, the arianne's server, fix the bug that happens when an object is added and deleted on the same turn from a slot, adds modification of the network protocol to send our RPObject only when changed, fixed a path related problem with the create account application and finally fixed an issue that rejects the creation of database on the first run.
This version of gladiators, our actual client for gladiators game, updates to follow the changes on the server.2004-04-20 20:56:02
As you know we are reaching the begining of another iteration in the Marauroa server ( you know... this is an XP development ). This new iterations add several great things as:
- a python based rules engine
- a map for storing the enviroment
- the new delta-delta perception system
- persistent accounts world and players
2004-04-14 12:23:02
On my way of "release often, release big" I have released a new version of Marauroa that adds the infamous delta-delta algorithm that allows to send only the differences of the objects that have changed, improving so the bandwidth usage. I also have released a working ( I tried them ) version of Gladiators that is self contained, although you may need to install over 0.07 to get more models and a new version of ariannexp that is the text test client that should compile and run perfectly on linux too.
Why in the hell there are no progress on gameplay? Nice question, I work alone ( or better: I am working alone ) so I can't develop all by myself. root777 is doing a nice job at the Java side, but the client is only handled by me and I can't spend more time ( of what I spend now ) on it. Also our RP game designer is MIA (miss in accion), but anyway the progress should come soon.
I do really need help with someone that could take care of a SDL-based graphical client. I have to keep developing the server side of the game and I am not going to be able to keep in sync the client. Just step on the IRC channel or arianne-devel mailing and I will give you more info.2004-04-05 19:34:52
I have released a new version of Gladiators and ariannexp that keep in sync with changes on Marauroa. There aren't any gameplay improvements, but I am setting the base for a improved game that should happen soon. BTW now ariannexp is totally compilable and runable in Linux using autoconf. You need GCC 3.x in order to compile it.
If you feel nice enough I would be looking for help to write a simple SDL client, I would create all the GFX for you. Just step on the IRC channel or arianne-devel mailing and I will give you more info.2004-03-27 16:24:39
Today Marauroa and Arianne have joined on the task for creating a high quality free and open source multiplayer online game. From this union we can all expect a increment in productivity that will result in more ambitious, and faster achieved milestones.
Our first task is to implement the new combat system.2004-03-26 20:25:41
This is also an update version of Gladiators 0.06 that add support for Marauroa's updated version of the network protocol and that fix the bug related to text output. I also have changed per request the location of the text at login time so now it is readable. Please test and report problems.
2004-03-06 13:59:12
This is an update version of Gladiators 0.05 that add compression to the network layer so that the bandwidth usage is smaller. Also it is the only version that will connect to the actual server. Please test and report.
2004-02-26 19:40:26
Again, a new version of Gladiators ( and again for windows only ).
Text has been reworked so that it is more "usable" now. You may still have the server unreachable problems, I promise to fix it on 0.06. Now error messages are more useful :) and finally fame has been reworked to be more fair and scalable.
This one doesn't crash. I have stressed it for 4 hours and I have not been able to crash it.
So I am really interesting on anyone's story about gladiators problem.2004-02-22 20:28:32
It has been a long time since the last release but finally I have been able to add Chat and the client is stabler than ever. My new goals are to add a shop to buy/sell items so that combat can be less random and more interesting.
I have also added an update version for those of you that already has Gladiators 0.032004-02-20 13:31:48
I have written a new website with in invaluable of Steve. We would really love to listen to comments and friendly hands to help improve even more the webpage
2004-02-11 18:12:48
A new week, a new release! :)
This version of Gladiators works for sure ( I have tested it several times). Please give it a try and report problems you have and mainly features you want. Yes, chat, I know. Chat is complex so I will add in 0.042004-02-06 20:18:48
This release features better error handling, a music, a nicer mouse pointer and traces to be able to debug the application remotely.
2004-02-01 01:53:29
Gladiators is a game where you are the player, and you OWN several characters, each characters is a gladiator. As a gladiator your task is to fight and survive in the Arena.
You can also play as a spectator, and join the arena to see the combat and decide the luck of the fighters, as spectator you can decide if the looser die or not and the amount of fame that is assigned to each of the fighters. Your main goal is to get fame so that you can buy better equipment, and better gladiators. This release features better error handling, a music, a nicer mouse pointer and traces to be able to debug the application remotely.
