30 September 2009 - ISP reports serious lag was due to upstream network issue.

30 September 2009 - Fixed a table which was preventing some pills from working right. This is a stopgap, not a proper fix, but playas shouldn't be able to tell the difference. (Root cause: problem in an alias lookup routine.)

11 June 2009 - Received a trouble report from ISP. Approximately 45 minute outage on 10 June 2009, at about 9:45p system time. Apologies for the inconvenience.

10 May 2009 - Found a few incorrectly blocked rooms which were interfering with proper TD function.

4 March 2009 - Found a bug in the banishment code which was preventing aggressive mobs from doing EQP, and possibly other issues.

7 December 2008 - Made a minor adjustment to the level display code. It is unlikely that anyone will notice at this time. Also updated a few information fields on for ASS's. These changes should go online at next reboot.

14 November 2008 - Upstream carrier issues. Data center reports that we may have some instability issues while the carrier resolves the connection problems. (Known problem 12:30p PST - 1:35p PST)

(date uncertain) - Many AL client users had problems with a bad cached DNS lookup, due to the IP address change.

26 October 2008 - Finalize move from DGT to new hosting provider. MOTD temporarily shows which server you've connected to, to help with DNS lag issues. Took about 3 hours to get some of the quirks worked out with the webserver side of things - CGI (help system), web directory set up right.

6 September 2008 - Advance mobs now will not be able to advance you beyond their level. Advance mobs are now more likely to shout congratulations.

16 August 2008 - DGT moved us to new hardware. Most things look to still work.

27 July 2008 - Turned on an obscure immortal command. Fixed an obscure bug with obj_to_room (failure to check that both items are joinable).

26 July 2008 - installed javassh client on website. http://azilar.com/client.html

9 July 2008 - Further support for rooms without floors.

7 July 2008 - More sensible support for rooms without floors.

2 July 2008 - Non-critical patch to Identify. (Weapon type)

1 July 2008 - Subtle change to the food code. (V3 handling) Patched a typo in do_taste. Non-critical patch, so no reboot was specifically initiated to bring online.

29 June 2008 - Finished up a series of upgrades to jack.

26 June 2008 - Found and fixed a DIV/0 error (promptly after the mud crashed).

25 June 2008 - A few overlooked things were tweaked as side effects of mute.

22 June 2008 - Minor change to the side effects of mute. As should be obvious, mute would make it hard to talk.

25 May 2008 - Attempted to special-case a bug in obj_from_room which has been causing numerous crashes lately.

10 May 2008 - Added req_level to flist display in shops.

27 April 2008 - Adjusted hunter chase code slightly.

12 April 2008 - Changed when mobs try to flee during mob-mob combat, to try to cut down on the number of unshcheduled reboots. Added some more state-dump commands to the crash reports.

8 April 2008 - There has been a subtle change in how banishment is handled. This should not be an issue for most players.

2 March 2008 - There is now a subtle movement point penalty for carrying a lot of weight. "A lot" is relative to the player, of course.

8 February 2008 - Certain mobs now do not yield bones. Service level has been upgraded with the ISP, so hopefully we won't run out of RAM so quickly. This may have been causing our frequent crashes/hangs. (We are now entitled to run 45 megs of RAM.)

6 February 2008 - Hunter mobs can now chase fleeing targets.

4 February 2008 - There is now an Azilar wiki. http://azilar.wikispaces.com Hunter mobs can now chase fleeing targets, but there is an XP bonus added to make up for it. (If you're worried, use a recall.)

3 February 2008 - Updated the immortal sys command to show CPU duty cycle data.

2 February 2008 - Added a watchdog timer style keepalive, and setrlimit(RLIMIT_CPU) reset. This should make the wedges go away faster.

27 January 2008 - mapp contents should now work.

26 January 2008 - A room with harvestable plants will now be offer visible indication.

20 January 2008 - Fixed an old bug/feature which alllowed SZ mobs to flee across zone boundaries, per Malaguena's request. AFFECTED bitvector can now include the flag WEB.

12 January 2008 - Officially brought suicide mobs online. Mobs can kill themselves after a time. Suiciding mobs do not leave behind a corpse.

20 October 2007 - Savaname found a mud-crashing bug in the EqDamage code. Thanks, Sava. Espin patched it.

15 October 2007 - Resonate spell is now online. HELP RESONATE Fixed a major bug in the sigil inset code which prevented req_levels from working properly.

14 October 2007 - Pelt code tweaked to allow hoard tables instead of only objects.

7 October 2007 - Equipment damage from elemental attacks tweaked - things shouldn't get destroyed so readily, now. Immunity to an element now means its side effects cannot strike you. Resistance now makes the side effects less likely. New item type: SIGIL. Sigils confer elemental properties.

5 October 2007 - Equipment damage from elemental attacks now online.

3 October 2007 - Testing some new code to allow elemental attacks to sometimes damage gear... i.e. acid spray might make holes in the armor. This is quite similar to kicker damage, but regrettably the code is not quite so portable.

2 September 2007 - Minor adjustment to can_use_obj corrects a typo (verb and required object were in wrong order). A moderate change removed the race check on foods. A change in do_eat now allows mobiles to eat.

17 July 2007 - Adjustment to how hoard tables in room contents are handled. (Tables will not pop if any of the table's content objects are present in the room.)

8 July 2007 - Adjustment to containers (cont_door flag: FRAGILE). Some containers will now break when they are opened. (i.e. open urn, get the thing that was inside.)

16 June 2007 - Minor adjustment to do_gather. Most players won't notice. Added a move cost to calling.

24 May 2007 - Tweaked flee code to allow players to use AFF_HOLD gear. (AFF_HOLD gear means that mobs who are less than 130% of your level cannot flee from you. This is very handy against wimpies.) Further adjusted code related to mobs and keys, wands, and staves.

21 May 2007 - Adjusted the side effects for paralyzation and petrify elements.

20 May 2007 - Adjusted the call command slightly.

14 May 2007 - Added a help message for newbies on "train" and "practice", at fitness instructors and guildmasters.

29 April 2007 - New command: call.

3 April 2007 - Adjusted the mount code so that steeds that are far smaller than the player are unusable as mounts. They can still serve as pack animals.

26 March 2007 - Zodiac and LadyK found a(nother) bug in no_rent items. Fixed, rebooted. Adjusted how mobs use keys.

20 March 2007 - Minorly adjusted some spells (manaheal, moveheal).

14 March 2007 - Adjusted the load room for newbies. Now they go to the newbie school foyer, instead of being locked in the course. Depending on observed trends, this may revert.

13 March 2007 - Adjusted do_combine to allow 10 objects instead of 6.

11 March 2007 - At request of a builder, made a change so that non-inventory items can be used in combine. For example, you can now combine a widget from your inventory with a no-take item in a room, like a fountain.

5 March 2007 - Updated the web help system to use tables instead of unordered lists. This should make the list a lot easier to scroll through. It may be a bit of a pain for people who are still using 800x600 displays, or people who are using unusually large fonts. However, it looks great on my 1024x768 display in Firefox.

28 February 2007 - Found a bug from Monday in do_grab, preventing people from being able to hold things like lights and wands and held weapons.

26 February 2007 - Finally fixed the bug that allowed items to be combined with themselves. Mostly, this means that the turtle shell kneepads will work properly, now. More commands check can_use_obj. can_use_obj has a better verb selection in its error messages.

24 February 2007 - Some changes and enhancements to pills. One of the side effects of these enhancements is that certain foods may now have prerequisites. This is not a bad thing, and will probably not get used much. New shield_fx: energy drain. Fixed identify to show shield_fx in more cases.

18 February 2007 - Bourmak noticed that edit was similarly vulnerable. Fixed.

17 February 2007 - At Soth's prompting, finally patched a long-standing security hole in do_cat. Immies should be able to cat files again at next reboot.

7 January 2007 - New feature - skeletal mobiles. Now, some mobiles can be set up to not have flesh - makes sense for skeletons. They may still have skin (wisps of fur or leather), but they won't yield meat. The skin and butcher commands will still work in the "normal" way, although a new message has been added, and butchering a skeletonized corpse won't give you meat.

2 January 2007 - Happy New Year! At the request of one of the evil builders, A change has been made to trainers. High level trainers will no longer accept beginner students. If a trainer can train you beyond 50% on a skill or spell, they are considered high level - you must first learn at a lower level trainer. Complaints will be accepted on this matter, but be ready to validate your complaint with a good reason why you should be able to go straight to the master trainer (and waste his or her time) instead of going to a lower level trainer first. (Or from a real-world standpoint, answer the question - "Why should I let you enroll in 500 level Calculus and Real Analysis when you can't seem to balance your checkbook?") This goes online at next reboot.

31 December 2006 - A routine review of the source code found that a debugging flag had been left on for the last 10 months on the server process, eating up extra memory and disk. Switched it off.

24 December 2006 - Further tweaked the no_rent object patch, unbreaking no_rent puzzle keys. I'm such a naughty monkey not to have adequate foresight. Now, no_rent objects /may/ be given to mobiles, but only if they are talkers, and no_rent objects are /always/ destroyed when given to talkers - even if they're not puzzle keys for that mob.

24 December 2006 - Finally updated the cast code so that spells with a movement cost now actually charge the movement cost, and fail if the player doesn't have enough moves. Thanks to the low uptime from yesterday's boot, I felt no remorse in rebooting.

23 December 2006 - Made a noticeable change to objects. Now, potions and scrolls will check for req_level, req_str, race, etc when using. This means no more giving attack scrolls to your pet dog, as well as allowing the builders to specify that Level 1 noobies may not recite level 2000 scrolls. This change was significant enough to schedule a reboot.

18 December 2006 - Noticed a player trend to give no_rent items to mobiles, to avoid the no_rent issue. Now, no_rent items cannot be given to mobiles. This will go online at next reboot.

16 December 2006 - Minor tidying of immortal side helpfiles, enhancing completeness of documentation. Significantly improved the speed of the web help.cgi system.

2 December 2006 - Fixed a minor bug that made the password not be obscured after a failed password. (This bug had been in the code for a very long time as well.)

29 November 2006 - Fixed a minor bug which made dump rooms not work right. (This bug had been in the code for at least 4 years.)

17 November 2006 - Made a significant change to meat. Meat will now spoil and disintegrate. See HELP MEAT.

16 November 2006 - Made a subtle change to how light sources run out. Now an expired light source will POOF when dropped.

10 September 2006 - Added the HARVEST command. See HELP HARVEST.

20 May 2006 - Rearranged newbie school to add skill and stat trainers near the entrance.

30 April 2006 - Created frost blast rune. Added enantimorphia as a potential weapon SFX.

28 April 2006 - Added enantimorphia spell.

22 April 2006 - Some touching up of the website. Fixed the failed logins messages. (Stupid boot tables.)

13 April 2006 - Tweaked the missroom reporting system. Now mud admins will only get daily reports when there are things to report, instead of empty emails.

12 April 2006 - azilar.com domain is now working properly. You may connect to azilar.com _OR_ azilar.genesismuds.com on port 2150 to play. Web access is tested as functional at either azilar.com or www.azilar.com .

10 April 2006 - Fixed the worn item norent bug. This is the glitch that caused people to lose their inventory. Sorry it took so long. (As a side note, it was a one-line fix, that took more time to test than to write. Start-to-finish was about 45 minutes.) Registered azilar.com domain, should be functional by end of week.

9 April 2006 - Some previous IMP-only commands are now bestowed upon Level 9000(+) Assistants.

2 April 2006 - Draconian gold-gift limits softened.

21 February 2006 - Draconian gold-gift limits in effect. See "help gold" for more details.

30 December 2005 - Made a minor change to the interactive mobile code. Now, says and tells should be correctly colored, as well as having a reasonable pause before they appear. Tells from interactive mobiles should also work properly in tell history now.

29 December 2005 - A few minor changes. Builders may now use forges (the products get blocked). Mobiles with the RACE flag (i.e. animals) can now have special kinds of hides.

16 December 2005 - Added preliminary support for flying.

24 November 2005 - Added experience and meta information to finger.

23 November 2005 - Internal change (NEWBIE became POOFS, POOFS does not imply NO-SELL). This is primarily a cosmetic change. ("NEWBIE" items now simply set both POOFS and NO-SELL)

22 November 2005 - Added a bonus for WIMPY mobs.

15 October 2005 - Changed the wear positions list slightly. This should enhance dress best to pick better weapons more often. Lore spell should work much better now.

7 October 2005 - Lots of things have been done, but poorly documented. Many immortal helpfiles have been updated, meaning that they're now sensible. Combo messages have been changed - eliminated in cases where there is no bonus, and they now list the bonus given. Checking and fixing lots of missroom faults.

Still trying to figure out why some immortal changes (bamf) don't appear until after a reboot, when it looks like they should appear immediately.

2 May 2005 - Espin's Gratuitous Thanks

This project would not have been possible without the efforts of a whole bunch of people, and I would be remiss to not recognize them and their efforts:

The original Diku creators, and the various people who twiddled the codebase after they were done with it...

Hannah - For squawking about all our style violations, spelling errors, and grammatical faults (And thusly making the game NOT READ LIKE A FOURTH-GRADER'S CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE NOVEL) (Bountiful, myriad thanks)

Void - Who wrote an entirely new puzzle and talker system, when we found out that the last one wasn't released

Savaname - For churning out a record number of excellent descriptions in practically no time

Malaguena - For putting up with me, which is a lot harder than it seems

... and lastly, I would like to thank all the naysayers for their taunts, jeers, and disbelief. I wouldn't have been motivated to make certain critical decisions without them doing what they did, when they did.

Enjoy the MUD.... Espin



April 29, 2005 - Just about 3 weeks into this experiment, we open. Kaiandamar is done (but for some minor polishing issues), and the surrounding areas are playable. Building continues...

April 24, 2005 - Fixed the rebooter again. (Needs to be invoked as ~/bin/runmud, not bin/runmud, or it chokes)

April 24, 2005 - Got message from Genesis about planned downtime - Moving server farm from Milwaukee, WI to Denver, CO. We will be down, again, from 9am until midnight on 2 May 2005.

April 24, 2005 - Moved to Genesis from Espin's personal box. (For the interested, the whole process took less than an hour, plus a little longer for some idiosyncracy removal - namely, adding nohup to the mud-reboot script. Slackware didn't need it, but Redhat does.)

April 12, 2005 - Discovered limitations of Cogline's release.

April 8, 2005 - The builders are getting used to their new homes.

April 7, 2005 - Cogline releases the minimal set of data files so that the server will boot. Espin brings the development server online within 1 hour of the library file release.

April 6, 2005 - Cogline releases the C source code for the server program. Within 5 minutes of the release, Espin has it downloaded, and compiled within the hour. It fails to run, due to a lack of datafiles.

April 2, 2005 - Cogline announces that Ashavar's Legacy, the best MUD in the world (or so believed by some), is going offline May 1, 2005. He simultaneously promises to release the source code and most of the areas.