Friday, 29 February 2008

Logins now shown in Clan chat

Although it has not been announced on the news page or forums, when a clan member logins it will now announce the login in clan chat.

This will benefit people who have world chat disabled as before they would not see if a clan member logged in.

[3] 17:56 Rictor has logged in

Tuesday, 26 February 2008

New server and downtime

From the announcement forum:

Tomorrow morning we are moving Syrnia to a new server. The only difference anyone should notice is a performance improvement.

Syrnia will be taken down at 10:00 Syrnian time. We are expecting around a 45 minute downtime for the game, assuming all file transfers go smoothly.

No items/levels or anything else will be lost. We do advise players to stop fighting before Syrnia is taken down.

Thanks to all the donators that helped make this server upgrade possible!

DW-HQ outage tomorrow

DW-HQ will be offline tomorrow afternoon while they upgrade their database. The site is expected to be offline for a few hours.

Battle mage arena schedule

Currently there is only one fight scheduled, and that is tomorrow:

At 2008-02-27 - 22:01: Level: 10 - 19

Update: Another has been added:

At 2008-03-04 16:16 Level: 40 - 150

Synia outage last night

Looking at the shoutbox it appears that Syrnia was down during the night for around one hour. No one could login.

There is no news or announcement reagarding this incident, so the cause remains a mystery.

Sorry there were no announcments on the blog at the time, I was fast asleep!

Sunday, 24 February 2008

Rudilyn has stepped down as the Pirate captain

After leading the pirates for what seems like forever, Rudilyn has left Skull island.

Rudilyn had -9k fame which kept her in the posotion all this time. The duty of pirate captain has been passed on to whoever has the most negative fame now.

Im sure Rudi will be missed by the long term pirates, as well as those who only knew her for a short time from pirate chat.

Update

akkarin is the new pirate captain.

Saturday, 23 February 2008

Invasion fighting bug

With the first pirate invasion since the update, a bug has been uncovered which stops an invasion from finishing.

An unannounced new feature is that you cannot fight the last creatures in an invasion if someone is already fighting them. So many of us waited at Deep Lemo for the last 3 Roughies to perish, and we waited and waited. It was obvious after 15 minutes of waiting that there was a problem.

Either the 3 players were afk and had a botcheck or logged out/closed Syrnia while they were fighting. Whatever the reason, it stopped the invasion from finishing.

Since this incident, staff initiated invasions of creatures have started so I can only assume that the bug mods did this to test a fix, or to find the cause of the bug.

While this bug should be fixed pretty soon, if not already, players trying to exploit this bug to make invasions multiply will be punished by mods!

Young Eagles invade Burning Beach

Rumours are that there were 144 of them spotted, but all have been killed now.

Rate are at Penteza and Valera.

Usually when these attacks happen, other animals attack other locations, so keep your eyes open!

Pirates are invading

Pirates have attacked and taken over towns on Dearn island.

So far reports have come back that 500 level 18 Keelhails pirates are at Port Dazar and 448 level 12 Dread pirates are at Aunna. Also 1950 Roughnecks at Lemo woods.

If you want to join the pirates, now is the time to buy a keg of rum from a shop and take it to Xanso so the pirate recruiters will allow you to join.

Thursday, 21 February 2008

New outlands video

A video of the new look outlands made by fritsz shows how fast the OL is now, as well as the new look and some combat.

Wednesday, 20 February 2008

Views on the update

With the update now live, im wondering what players views on it are.

My views so far:
  • The speed of everything is great
  • The automatic update of inventory/messages is awesome
  • I like the way you can move items in and out of your house (with drag and drop turned off)
  • The outlands is nice and fast, not sure if I like it this way yet, time and a few fights there will tell
  • Im not keen on the way chat works now. With the floating chat on it hides the cancel link when travelling etc. Non floating chat is akward as it changes position according to what you are doing. With constant changes in the size of the window above, its constantly moving
  • Dropped items can be picked up much quicker, maybe too quick
  • The countdown timer always being at the top is great, especially when fighting
  • No refreshing too fast errors now, which is great
  • The constructing link at locations will stop a lot of questions form new players, which is good
  • I dont like the fact that you cant click a food item to start the next fight while doing combat

I guess i'll have more views on it after playing some more :)

Let me know you views by clicking the comment link below. You can post anonymously or choose the name/URL option and just put in your name, no account is needed.

Syrnia update changes

This beta's main goal was to speed up Syrnia and fix a lot of bugs, however, it also added new features:

Drag and drop has been added:
You can drag items from your inventory to your character or to the 'use' area on top of the inventory to use/wear items.You can drag items from/to your houses and the 'Dropped items'.The Drag&Drop inventory does not scroll anymore, it is suggested you have no more than 6-8 rows of items in your inventory. However, you can also choose to disable D&D at the options page, you'll then use a click system like the old syrnia. This inventory does allow scrolling. In D&D you can also double click to use an item right away.

Auction
The cave of trades has been improved:When an auction failed you'll need to pickup the item where you offered it.A search option has been added.The minimum bid when adding an auction is no longer set to 2000 gold, the minimum bid now depends on your trading level (At the moment this is the formula: level 1:1000 gold, level 5: 2000 gold, level 25: 30.5000 gold)

Refreshing
You'll never need to refresh any part of the game any more. You can not even refresh just 1 part of the game any more, because the frames have been removed.All information on the screen is now always up2date; levels, hp etc.

Timers
Some people had problems with timers resetting, this has been improved.

Chat
The chat now always floats at the bottom of your screen, if you don't like it you can disable the 'floating' at the options page.You can now also customize the chat height at the options page.

An option has been added to disable the item images
This might save SOME performance on slower connections, but I doubt it's got a big effect.

Performance improvement
Speed improvements, less lag.
Quite a few chat optimizations.

Forum
The forums mark new topics since your last login with the red keyword 'new'.
Forum BB code ([b] [u] [i] [li] [ul] [strike] )
Clan tags have been added to the forum

Desert arena
The desert arena has been fixed, fights are being scheduled regularly.

Equipping
Any items you equip do not show in your inventory anymore (to save room)

Worldmap
The worldmap has been updated. 2 new sailing rotues have also been added: Serpenthelm-exrollia and exrollia-heerchey.

Level up
Whenever you gain a level, you'll be congratulated !

Shops
Empty shops are no longer shown in the shop list.

Player list
Offline players are no longer shown at the player list, only in PvP area's they'll show (OL, Desert arena).

Constructing link
The constructing link now always shows.

Crowding
Crowding is now not always only bound to the skill you are practicing, but also the type of work you are doing: Mining tin will not affect mining iron.
However; Smelting a bronze bar will still affect smelting iron bars.

The outlands and other PvP areas:
(-The player list has been moved to the right, next to the map.)
-Enemies will show as red, clan members green.
-For OL healing: Using D&D you can now also double click to use food (or use C&C for a single click)

Cooking
The burn rate formula has been changed, the old formula was incorrect for higher cooking levels. The new formula should result in quite similar burn rates at the lower levels, but more success at the higher levels.
Cooking times for these fish have been adjusted: Shark, swordfish, bass. They all got an increase of 10 - 40 seconds.

Syrnia update FAQ

What was the goal of this upgrade ?
To improve speed and fix a lot of bugs. However, also some (small) new features have been added.

What bugs have been fixed, and what features have been added ?
See the list of all changes (Forum -> Announcements -> Syrnias update CHANGES).

Has the upgrade changed my character/skills or items ?
No, your character should be the same as before the upgrade, the only difference is that your character is not wearing any items when you login.

How does the new inventory work?
The default inventory system is the "drag & drop" system. Using D&D you simply drag items you want to use/wear to your character, or to the use area at the top-left of your screen. The Drag&Drop system does not feature an inventory scrollbar any more.

Help ! I tried to equip an item and it disappeared
If you equip items now, they will be removed from your inventory and moved to your character.I don't like drag and dropping itemsYou can also double click to use an item, instead of drag&dropping.However, you can also disable the drag&dropping. You can switch over to the old click behavior. Go to the options page-> "Drag&Drop" to enable or disable drag&drop.

My screen size is huge, I have to scroll down a lot
This is probably because your inventory is very big. You can either try to use houses to storage some items, or disable drag&drop to get a scrollbar for the inventory.

I don't like the floating/hovering chat
You can disable or enable the floating chat at the chat options.You can now also change the chat height, to fit your screen size.

The chat's height doesn't seem to be correct
You can change the chats height at the chat options page.

I cannot refresh parts of the game any more!
You should never need to refresh the game any more, if you must do so, it must be because of a bug (please report the problem).HP, levels, inventory all update instantly. There are only 2 things that will not show up right away: Flower bouquets and auction items you've received, those will take +/-30 minutes to appear after receiving the message. The message indicator also only updates every +/- 15 minutes.

What are the next things that are going to be worked on ?
We first want to make sure this new beta is running smoothly, so we've got no plans to add new features for a couple of days.Besides 'real' game updates one of the next things we really want to fix is the rusty spelling/grammar.

How Do I Get My Writing Bold and Underlined in the Forums
Well its not that hard to do you just have to know the BB code for it.Heres are the BB codes you can use. [b] [u] [i] [li] [ul] [strike]
[b] = Bold
[u] = Underlined
[i] = Italics
[li] = List
[ul] = Undefined List
[strike] = Put a line through the word/sentence.

To Finsh of the code you MUST put the following [/b] [/u] [/i] [/li] [/ul] [/strike] after the corresponding code or it will not work.Do note that you should not use these options too much, as that will look rather spammy.

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

Wednesday is upgrade day

Thats right Syrnians, if no major problems pop up between now and Wednesday, syrnia will be upgraded between 10am to 11:30am.


18-02-2008 Lots of improvements, coming soon !

We've been working a lot on the new Syrnia code these weeks and it looks like it's done. No more new serious bugs are found for a while, and it's far more stable than the current Syrnia version. A lot of bugs have been fixed, and some new features have been added. A list of changes will be posted after upgrading the game.

Unless some huge problems are found in the meanwhile, the beta will be released this Wednesday between 10.00 and 11.30 Syrnia time. Most likely we will finish the transfer to the new code sooner than the given time. You will not be able to play Syrnia from 10:00 (Syrnia time) untill the upgrade is ready. You will not lose any stats/items etc.

Monday, 18 February 2008

Burn rate of higher level fish fixed/adjusted

There has been an announcement on the forum regarding burn rates in the new version of syrnia.


The burn rate formula has been changed in the newly coded Syrnia currently in beta. The old formula was incorrect for higher cooking levels. The new formula should result in quite similar burn rates at the lower levels, but more success at the higher levels.

Cooking times for these fish have also been adjusted: Shark, swordfish, bass. They all got an increase of 10 - 40 seconds to balance out experience gains per fish.

This is provided to give all fishers/cooks a heads up to what is coming soon.

This is good news for players who cook. Before now it has been pretty hard to cook these fish, with the most notable being the swordfish. Most players who own a cooked swordfish have gotten them from red gifts.

In the past fishers have continued to fish for tuna and lobsters even though they could catch higher level fish, simply becouse cooks did not want the higher level fish as they could not cook it.

So cooks and fishers will benefit from this change as they can get more xp. Also higher level fighters will benefit as they can buy and use higher HP food.

Saturday, 16 February 2008

Rats summoned by orb

A player used a rat invasion orb at ogre entrance:

[1]09:51 An evil mage summoned 26 Rats at Ogre cave entrance 1. We need to kill the Rats before we can continue working.

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Inside the chests

Various locations around the syrnian islands have messages about who opened the last chest there as the chests continue to appear throughout today.

One lucky player who guessed the right number to open a chest was propje. The number 8 opened the chest and inside was 25 red roses!

The flower shops at Harith and Elven gate will buy Roses for 50gp each.

Thanks to a_f_c for sending me the info about propje's success.

Update

A few more more details of opened chests have been sent in.

scredola opened a chest at Ten Cliffs on Skull island with the number 67 and got 10 Skull roses.
DJ-Kiwi opened a chest using the number 166 and got 50 roses.
trosey got 25 roses after gussing the number 6 to open the chest.

Valentines day competition

Yes its that time of the year and Syrnia is marking the occasion with flowers and a competition.

The citizens of Syrnia are celebrating Valentine's Day by dropping off chests of flowers throughout the day. Be on the lookout for them at the top of every hour starting at 01:00. There will be a minimum of 2 chests dropped each hour somewhere in Syrnia.

Castle Rose is also having a flower contest starting at 01:00. The 3 people who can bring the brightest colored lady sunshine flower to Lady Rose will win a very nice gold prize.

Have fun, and happy Valentine's Day from the Syrnia Staff.

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

Mod muting

This was seen in world chat. Im not sure if ladyraven was really muted, but its funny anyway ;)

[1] 00:40 (Mod)ladyraven143[Cute]: josaber6 STOP SPAMMING
[1] 00:41 (Mod)ladyraven143[Cute]: oops
[1] 00:44 (Mod)Moderator: ladyraven143 muted


Thanks to gromaz for sending me this copy/paste!

Monday, 11 February 2008

Lag and players online

I thought these little morsels of information may interest you:

Earlier today there were 806 players online which is more than usual.

Apparently this contributed to the lag and error messages we were getting today.

Sunday, 10 February 2008

Bats attack Dearn Island

[0] 19:01 A strange fog starts to cover Dearn Island.....

Bats are attacking Lemo woods and Unera.

The sneaky animals chose the perfect time to attack as many are lagging and getting error messages. Maybe they will have a chance to multiply this time!

Pirates suprise attack

Only days after their last attack, the pirates are invading again.

Early reports suggest that Syrnians have already got control of Franir mines back but Mentan and Xanso are still under attack. The pirates have taken over xanso and have increased their forces to 1355 Roughnecks.

The invasion may last an hour or two so if you want to join the pirates, take a keg of rum to Xanso during this time and you will see the option to join under the Sail link. Kegs can be brought in shops at Xanso and other places.

Saturday, 9 February 2008

The future of Syrnia Corner

Im currently considering the future of Syrnia Corner.

Due to this being a blog I am limited to posting just news and events. Lately there has not been much to report and I feel the site has stagnated becouse of this.

So at the moment I am not sure if I should close down Syrnia Corner or expand it to a full help site with articles, guides and a forum etc, but above all, a community site. If the site is expanded, I would need help moderating the forums and with article writing. But spending the time to do this is pointless if the site would not be used.

So I would like some feedback from readers as to whether you would use such a website. To get an idea of what the site would be like, feel free to look here.

Gnome invasions

In the early hours of the morning, gnomes invaded various locations.

[0]02:57 gnomes gnomes gnomes

As I was asleep, I have no idea of the places they attacked.

Friday, 8 February 2008

Pirate attack last night

There was a pirate invasion on Mezno island last night.

If you missed this one like I did, expect another one next weekend sometime.

Thursday, 7 February 2008

Deep sea monster appears in world chat

[0]22:20 The Deep Sea Monster pops his head out of the water, after hearing his name....

Scary :D

Lizard invasion at Rose gates

The lizards are invading Rose gates and have multiplied.

There are 1340 Lizards left at the time of this post.

Shop thieving in beta

It has been reported that M2H has used code in the beta to stop the back button working when thieving shops.

Currently in Syrnia you can use the back button to go back and steal from a shop again if you was succesful.

If the code stays in the beta then it will mean that afer you have thieved something, you would then have to click on shops again and find the shop again to try and steal another of the same item.

So in the future it would be a good idea to remember the shop name/player name who owns the shop, especially if you found the items you want to steal using the search option.

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

The Line Faerie mystery is over

After a week of lines appearing under players name, the secret donator known as the Line Faerie has revealed her identity.

Phoenix Jewels was the kind player who waved her magic wand and gave the gift of underlines to many players ;-)

Thankyou Pj for the lines and fun many of us had trying to work out the mystery. It certainly made a change from the normal topic of conversation!

You can read Phoenix Jewels posts about this here and on the syrnia forums.

Sunday, 3 February 2008

Competitions

A few players have started competitions with prizes on the syrnia forums.

One is to guess how many burnt fish Canasian is carrying around.

The other is guess the hp of cooked food that styx has.