This is a throwback to Evol's old news posts. Great for community engagement and stupidly abandoned in 2016. But this is 2019 and I will write a news post if I want to, dammit.
Here's what's going on. Buckle up.
Development speed is steadily picking up! Special thanks to Micksha, Jesusalva and Tomminator for this.
Check out activity on GitLab to stay up to date with what's being developed.
The test server is looking beautiful, if you haven't taken a tour yet, here's some quick screenshots:
11th April 2019 will be The Mana World's 15th birthday. Stay tuned for birthday celebrations and also feel free to throw your own party, as long as I'm invited.
Captura de tela em 2019-04-17 10-53-32.png (73.95 KiB) Viewed 7953 times
Well, so I would love to bore everyone to death, telling about how many placeholders we've added this past period.
From adding a hideout on Artis (where? it is a secret of course) (to contraband Nutella-err, fight against the Legion), to several bugfixes and bringing Wyara back... Adding minimaps to most maps while still keeping Rossy's caves a secret, improving several minor things and add some skills (because, seriously, we are the MANA world. A mana world without magic makes no sense, right?).
But thing is, I can't.
I know, many missed Mona's dad rescue operation. I know, many missed the incredible desync which brought 4144 to release ManaPlus 1.9.3.23. Throwing stuff in sewers and Peter quest redesign, and making sandwiches...
....But I don't have time for that, because in case you just said "Neat, there are progress bars on the picture", there is also due dates.
This means, as our (late) TMW birthday gift to community, we decided on a deadline.
You know, thing is - not even the developers can wait yet another whole year for this game to be playable.
So we decided on a deadline, somewhere between September and October 2019 (after lots of drama on IRC, as tradition demands.)
Anyway, gotta stop chat, we have a game to finish if we want to be able to call it The Mana World.
Do you know what makes The Mana World, The Mana World? Here is a hint: It is not the name. It is not the quests. It is not the graphics. And it is not the player data either.
If you find out, please do not share :>
Spoiler:
Fan Art: Angry TMW Developers going after Reid, because she took all the Nutella for herself and we need it to slay evil beasts:
Original Art: Fother, Irukard, Kansu
Messing up: Jesusalva
License: GPL v3 (with Attribution Required)
I'm making this announcement to tell you that our first development milestone for the new server's first release, titled The Mana World: rEvolt, is now 100% completed. The initial deadline was set at 31/05/19 but we managed to finish one month ahead of schedule!
The milestone was called Artis Sewer and included all content relating to the underground maps under the city of Artis as well as some other bits of content that we wanted to be out at the same time. The next milestone, Artis Legion, currently sits at 75% completion with a deadline of 30/06/19, but given how quickly things have been moving I would say we're well ahead of schedule for this one as well!
The third and final milestone, Hurnscald, encompasses the biggest part of the release: the town of Hurnscald and the surrounding woodland region of Argaes. Its deadline represents an approximate deadline for the entire release and is currently set at 06/09/19.
I want to say thank you to the people who have worked the most and the hardest in recent weeks to get us this far: Micksha and Jesusalva are undeniably the reason why we're moving so quickly and I'm very grateful for their amazing work. Toams has been working on fundamental things for the Artis Legion milestone and we have him to thank for this next milestone doing as well as the previous. 4144 is, as always, the beating heart of TMW development without which we couldn't be doing any of this. There's many other people who make all of this possible, but this isn't my graduation speech so I'll cut it short and just give everyone a big thank you for sticking with this 15 year old project that continues to surprise me with how far it has come. I promise the next milestone announcement won't be as soppy, but this is the first one so I think it's fitting.
Hello everybody! As we're getting closer to deadline, we have even less time to make news, but why not doing news when there are some news?
I'll be dividing these news in three sections: TMWC/TMWT* Bulletin, Legacy Server News, and rEvolt news, which should cover... Pretty much everything happening, not only in development.
So, time for action!
TMWT BULLETIN
In the past weeks, a few decisions were approved by The Mana World Team (TMWC/TMWT). We'll not be saying about too old ones like the rules change, as most of you are already aware.
First, we made contributor shirt request proccess more simple, with more clear rules of what counts and what doesn't.
Hopefully, contributors will face less problems/bureaucracy in getting their c-shirt now!
And also, in the begin of this month, Jesusalva was internally voted as a server admin. That's me. Just for the record, please do not confuse admins with GMs or Event Coordinators; If you are being harassed while Prsm is offline and I'm online I'll obligue, but the final decision is still up to Prsm. (And to TMWT as a whole).
LEGACY SERVER NEWS
So, now that you all know what TMWC have been doing, we have some notices about the current main server!
One of the side effects was that the level cap was raised from 99 to 135. Originally we planned to revert that, but we then decided it would be better if the community decided instead.
And the results are that, currently, keeping the new level cap of 135 is with overwhelming advantage. I guess it came to stay, after all!
Also, for next week (Oct 7th onwards), there will be a new Halloween Boss, called Tormenta. Said boss will give large amounts of experience to whoever defeats, and may drop rare hats! (She spawns hourly, whenever minutes reach zero. There can't be two Tormentas at same time.)
Tormenta came directly from the Abyss, and we're still not sure of their relation with Valia and Luvia. She is still bound with the Abyss, but Halloween is creepy and creepy things happen. She will keep returning during the whole event.
Conspiracy Theory:
Spoiler:
Conspiracy Theory say that Tormenta might be Valia's and Luvia's mother; And because she was too dangerous she was purged to the Abyss by her daughters. The conspiracionists also say that her powers are still not at their fullest. But then, do you believe conspiracionists?
The drops and spawn point are as follow:
Spoiler:
Tormenta spawns at Hurnscald Farms (ask any Teleporter), in the herb farming spot northeast of Hurnscald.
0.1% drop - Evil Blinking Mask (Red)
0.4% drop - Paper Bag
0.4% drop - Skull Mask
0.4% drop - Face Mask
0.4% drop - Jester Mask
0.4% drop - Goblin Mask
0.4% drop - Opera Mask
0.5% drop - Guy Fawkes Mask
Note: Witch Hat, even if it looks cool, will not be dropped.
REVOLT SERVER NEWS
Of course, main development still comes to the new server, which hopefully will be made available after Halloween, but we depend on contributions to meet deadlines. If nobody come to help us, we might need to extend it again, and we really don't want that, because we've been postponing this since... Halloween 2016? That was THREE YEARS AGO! We're as agonized to release it as we hope you players are to playing it.
We have pushed Omatt's Training Room, a place where you can train your fighting skill against dummies. We're now developing Trozz's Training Room, which instead of dummies that won't fight back, you'll be facing Legion members!
Oh, the blacksmith also stocked up some arrows.
But enough of Artis, what's going on Hurnscald?
We're mapping the Merchant's House, who'll help you to don't get lost, because you aren't disembarking directly at Hurnscald.
4144 (aka. Andrei) also become a NPC (wasn't him one already? Nevermind...) and took his rightful spot in Hurnscald.
Also, we have updated our translations in case you want to contribute somehow but doesn't knows how!
By last, for potential contributors, I'm considering in giving a "public class" in basic quest scripting. Interested? Please enter in contact with me (either PM me ingame, in the forums, Discord, or send a message in IRC); Preferably for this Saturday but as I know everybody is busy including me, we might need to discuss precise time and date.
I don't plan in teaching individuals in coding because that wears me off quickier than teaching a small group; But we'll see how it turns out as we all have time constraints.
Just a quick announcement to say that we have renewed the evolonline.org domain for the benefit of CRC (who hosts their own website through the domain) and all the Evol content that is still hosted there as well.
The renewal was for 1 year and cost $17.78 USD. We are planning to potentially transfer everything on that domain to themanaworld.org or themanaworld.net (which we both own already) over the next year.
It has been quite a while since last news, but while we do chat about what's up ingame, those whom doesn't login or doesn't talk to us ingame might not be quite on-par with our latest mana news.
So, again, I'll be dividing in three sections to try to cover pretty much everything.
TMWT BULLETIN HoraK has been named a Developer and Big Crunch has been re-elected as a Game Master. Congratulations! As usual, we conduct GM reelections internally to make it quicker. If you wish to become a Game Master, you should get someone to Nominate you on the proper forum section!
If you have been following the team list, you may notice some names are gone. We periodically revise who have access to what and if they still need access to it, specially those with access to personal data. That's why names sometimes disappear from the list and why we have GM reelections.
REVOLT SERVER NEWS
The Mana World Development Team has officially put TMW rEvolt on hold for an undetermined amount of time. It's not gone, you can still access it on the test server after selecting the correct update server.
However, it is on hold, so it no longer has any ETA and development on it is currently frozen. The merge calendar has also been suspended.
LEGACY SERVER NEWS
The reason why we put rEvolt on hold, was that we decided to migrate TMW Legacy engine from tmwAthena to Evol2 as well.
Migrating the engine will allow development on the server to resume. Player data will be retained. This is a technical procedure; Game mechanics, items, art, monsters, et cetera are largely unchanged from what you know in TMW Legacy.
There are, however, a few exceptions; Both for technical reasons as for convenience. The full list is available at our wiki, and is subject to change. But here are some spotlights:
Max storage size will go from 300 to 500 slots!
All magic skills (and focus skills as well) were changed. These changes were largely needed so we can prepare Magic Tier 3 or because engine limitations. You no longer use magic by chat. If you still have not acquired a Mana Pearl, now might be the best time to do so!
Cindy Fight can now be repeated, without needing a mule character; But rewards won't be given.
Guilds now got a storage of their own. There is no longer the need to make yet another mule account. (Yes, I'm not a fan of mules, as you can see )
CrazyTree is back, and it is sitting on Hurnscald as a NPC. :]
You can now visit Keshlam Swamps alone, without doing Terogan ritual again (assuming you did it at least once). Not that anyone sane will ever consider doing it at the current price. It is worse than Terogan and can only warp a single player.
While we have no official ETA, we need your help testing and reporting any inconsistencies and/or bugs you find. Once we migrate your data from TMW Legacy (running under tmwAthena) to TMW Evolved (running under Evol2/Hercules), there will be no coming back!
And once again, I must repeat: TMW Evolved is supposed to be TMW Legacy running in a different engine. If you see something different on Evolved than it was on Legacy, and it was not listed on the wiki, it likely is a bug and should be reported.
This is not supposed to be a yearly bulletin, no. Anyway, what's up with TMWT? I want to know, which is why I write these news in first place...
I changed the sections this time.
TMWT BULLETIN LawnCable has been named a Developer and WildX has been de-retired and forced once again to work for us (as a slave, in Reid's basement, but don't tell anyone I said this). Congratulations! LawnCable is/was a long time contributor. He deals with Rust, C, C++, Godot, Python, JavaScript and other fancy languages. He does stuff I do not understand. He must be very smart. I should have him writing the news instead.
If you have been following the team list, you may notice some names are gone. We periodically revise who have access to what and if they still need access to it, specially those with access to personal data. That's why names sometimes disappear from the list and why we have GM reelections. Not that anyone follow it, ever, but I must say or people will complain.
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
We are moving to git.themanaworld.org ─ our github will keep working as a read-only mirror, but we'll delete some repositories from gitlab.com to comply with their new policies. If you hate JavaScript, there's another read-only mirror at cgit.themanaworld.org without the fancy stuff.
rEvolt wasn't migrated to the new Git repository yet as it is on hold, but it is not gone yet. Who knows, it might make a come back!
Reid and a few other devs started working in a parallel project dubbed Source of Mana. You can read more about it here.
We're having issues with *.themanaworld.org ─ some web assets may misbehave or work poorly, as you probably already noticed with password reset being offline for over a month. We apologize. We're doing what we can.
Steam probable release date is still December 1st ─ no adjustments were done yet ─ but team will later discuss about Legacy/Evolved transition. Our devs are growing sick not only of tmwa, but of ManaPlus as well. Which is why SoM started. Oh but don't worry, they're sick not dead, so support will continue. (Are we cruel masters who force our slaves--erm, devs, to work even if sick for the great wellbeing of mana? Maybe.)
Nothing exciting to report on Evolved or rEvolt development fronts.
RUNNING SERVERS NEWS
Currently, only TMW Legacy is up and running. Hunt the Hungry Fluffies event is coming. We're not planning to do anything special for Halloween this year, but Christmas is a different issue entirely.
(GMs may still do small scale events on Oct 31th, though, so be sure to login )
Unaffiliated Running Servers
Moubootaur Legends is not associated with TMW, but it is still up. Lots of random stuff developed, go see their news webpage if you are interested.
TMW-BR is not associated with TMW, but it is still up. It is frozen, so no new development? It is also running under TMWA.
There are no other known unaffiliated servers running to mention, but feel free to fork, we don't care... just a little
Spoiler:
JESUSALVA NEWS
I'm scheduled to graduate this month and am very busy with that.
In case the excessive irony and sarcasm didn't gave it away. Don't worry, I'll be back to my usual self next month.
TMWT BULLETIN Esteria is now on probationary period for the administrator position. You can think on this as an appointment to Head Janitor position ─ she is unlikely to help you directly but she will hopefully help improve and maintain our overall infrastructure so you can have a smoother experience when browsing forums and playing the game.
If you have been following the team list, you may notice some names are gone. We periodically revise who have access to what and if they still need access to it, specially those with access to personal data. That's why names sometimes disappear from the list and why we have GM reelections. Not that anyone follow it, ever, but I must say or people will complain.
DEVELOPMENT NEWS
We are renaming "TMW Legacy" to "TMW Classic".
The new temples maps are progressing. Dimond Cove update was added to Forums for feedback.
We'll be replacing main homepage and mail servers soon~ish.
RUNNING SERVERS NEWS
Developers will hold an alignment meeting at December 14th 19:30 UTC, so all devs are on the same page and possibly to elect a new Project Manager. Everyone can participate, but only the core devs may "vote" (it is Consensus ─ anything controversial enough to warrant a vote will not be decided on the meeting. Lack of decisions means lack of development on Classic, so we hope for very productive discussions).