Improbable Island Message of the Day (MoTD)

December's Monthly Memento, and a kinda fund drive thing
Admin CavemanJoe2015-11-30 04:37:13 [Permalink]
Hey folks - Improbable Island's beloved Official Van went for its inspection last week, and the amount of bodywork necessary plus replacing the rusted-out brake lines and four new tyres would've cost about two grand and taken a Long Long Time, and since Emily and I can't go without transport for our jobs, we decided to empty our savings to buy a '96 Jeep with a nice long inspection period instead, 'cause it was cheaper than getting the van fixed.

The Jeep has a somewhat Improbable smell to it, which I'd like some advice on exorcising. A previous owner really liked cigarettes and cheap aftershave, and some dirty fucker puked in the back and never cleaned it up - if you've got experience on dispelling Horrible Horrible Smells from Jeeps, and also if you know where to get door lock linkage rods from so I don't have to drive around with the door panel off and get in through the passenger side (I can find the clips just fine but the rods elude me), please post in the Enquirer.

So obviously after all this, Emily and I are skint as balls, so I'm afraid we're gonna have to raise the prices on Monthly Mementos for a bit. The Monthly Memento for December is a special one to go with Sessine's Mighty Magpie card deck (which is a physical thing that you can buy in real life - check the previous MotD for details), and has the power to grant (or take away...) several buffs at once, depending on what cards you draw and what cards you've previously drawn. I hope you like it, and that you agree that it's special and worth a tenner.

More thoughts on the Island's finances will be incoming soon - we made some changes to prices a little while back that turned out well, but we also made some other changes that turned out not so well, so we'll be fiddling with a few things so Emily and I can pay the mortgage. Stay tuned for updates.

Also, I'm working on a pretty nifty major new game feature, since we've gone a few months with just minor tweaks and fixes and clearing out the backlog, and I reckon you're all due something new and shiny. Outpost minimaps! Move around inside the Outposts, discover hidden alleys and secret places, that kinda thing. It's gonna take a little while, since each square in the Outpost will need its own description (another benefit of this new thing is that I can write huge long detailed descriptions of things in the Outposts without showing the player a massive wall of text all at once), and for a relatively small outpost like NewHome, that's 7*7 squares, so 49 descriptions. And I've got eight Outposts to do. So expect that sometime early in the new year. Wild speculation and ideas for features are welcome, as always, in the Enquirer.

Have fun!

-CMJ
The MIGHTY MAGPIE - and more!
Fully synched Sessine2015-11-18 05:05:31 [Permalink]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hello there. It's been a while since you've seen that line of symbols, hasn't it? Well, I have great news. The THIRD deck of Island cards is now Done. It is a real thing. You can see it, and buy it, own it for yourself, right here: Mighty Magpie !

Not only that, there's also a collector's set with all three decks in a fancy box: Collector's Set !

(Incidentally, since the last time I talked about this, The Game Crafter has upgraded their process to use a better quality cardstock.)

Go take a look. Linger a bit! Watch the video of all the awesome art. No, seriously. DO that. Watch the video. You owe it to yourself. Then download the free Credits document to see who did it all, and the Rules, also free, to find out how to play the game.

Wait, the game?

Yes, there is, in fact, a card game. A pretty good one. Many thanks to Adder Moray for pulling this off. He designed it, and playtested it, and it works, and he only ever asked me for one change to the deck. Don't know about you, but I consider that to be evidence of genius.

As for me, I am going to celebrate. This has been an amazing joint Island fan project with participation from many, many people who love this place. There's a small profit margin above the production costs which all goes to support Improbable Island, so it's nice to think that if you buy now, not only are you giving yourself a great Christmas present, you're also helping CMJ have a better Christmas. Win-win!

Longstanding bug fixed
Admin CavemanJoe2015-11-15 07:15:56 [Permalink]
Auto-update in chat now supports UTF-8 character encoding, which means you can FINALLY use accented characters and upside-down text and bonkers characters in chat. This one has been on my plate for ages and people keep requesting it so I figured when I finally fixed it I'd make a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT and this is that BIG ANNOUNCEMENT so nyah. :D

Have fun!

-CMJ
A reminder...
Fully synched Sessine2015-11-10 18:51:59 [Permalink]
November is almost half-gone. To those of you whose characters have an Unfinished NaNoWriMo masterpiece stashed in a fancy shoebox... better get writing! You can do it! There's still time to finish it -- but only if you keep plugging away like a pro, adding a chapter every day.

Remember, you won't even know what genre it is until you finish it!
Couple updates
Admin CavemanJoe2015-11-08 18:24:46 [Permalink]
Hey, all. I updated the user saving routine so that many things on the Island will function a little bit quicker now. I also added a confirmation dialogue to smoking, because you've been asking for it since 2008.

Have fun!

-CMJ
Fairer character expiration
Admin CavemanJoe2015-11-03 06:30:41 [Permalink]
Hey, folks. To keep the game running fast, we've always had a system in place whereby characters that don't have any logins for a while are erased. Right now it's at a hundred and eighty days - so six months, basically. Up until now, the way it's worked has been a holdover from Old, Old Code, and I've never really been happy with the way it works - previously, we had different timeouts for people who'd gotten to a certain level, and these days we have a lot of players who don't really level up so much as build things and roleplay, so it's time we redesigned the system.

Now, character expiration is based on time and pageviews, rather than time and level, so roleplay alts who do lots of chatting but little fighting have the same timeout as everyone else. The timeout is still six months for anyone who's remotely into the game. For people just stopping by to kick the tyres and see if they like the game or not, the timeout remains at seven days - these are people who sign up and then go "Oh, so it really IS all text" and then leave without getting past their tenth pageview.

Furthermore, HyperRings - an item available in the Hunter's Lodge to exempt your character from expiration - are no longer necessary. If there has ever been a PayPal donation made in your character's name, your character will never expire. Existing HyperRings will continue to work for the purposes of preserving characters who've never made a PayPal donation.

Have fun!

-CMJ
New Monthly Memento, couple new features
Admin CavemanJoe2015-11-02 05:05:59 [Permalink]
Hey folks - even though things have been quiet up here in the MotD, that doesn't always mean things have been quiet development-wise.

The new Monthly Memento for November is up! Also, Monthly Mementos that are a year old or more are now available in the Hunter's Lodge, for 1,000sp each.

New feature: we've all been in the situation where you're chatting with someone, you get a Distraction, and because the screen automatically jumps to where you're chatting, you miss the notification at the top and the Distraction goes unnoticed for ages. Well, now there's a New Distractions notifier right underneath the chat areas, so you can't miss it!

In other news, I've gone down the Badnav Rabbithole again, trying to finally fix up the nav system to make badnavs a thing of the past. Wish me luck.

Have fun!

-CMJ
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