Illarion.org

This is a summary of the problems and some "opinions" that have appeared commonly, so that people (and especially the co-workers) don't need to hunt down the topics in the vast amounts of threads that have accumulated today. Feel free to add your opinion or things that I've missed.
I've arranged them from top to bottom in what I think is the order of importance:

• -The graphics for 2 wizard hats, robes, and the "new" leather items added from the previous client update, and another graphic, are all missing. You can PM if you can't figure out what all the missing graphics are.
  -> should be fixed by the new client version you can download....
  see this topic
  Shi'voc
  
  -It's a bit confusing that the unzipped files create their own folder inside your existing illarion folder. I think it needs to be explained a little better. Also most people seem to have lost their name.dat file without warning, and it seems copying the old name.dat doesn't help most people either. Not much can be done about it now I guess, but maybe a better warning next time would be helpful. Also some people are a bit confused about the "save log" checkbox so it would be helpful to have explained it more clearly.
  
  
  -Some of the floor tiles now "connect" with their own type better now, but the coloring of all the different tiles don't match with each other now. Forest ground is even brighter than grass and looks like a golf course. The huge contrast in the different shades of green between grass and forest ground make the square of the edges MUCH more noticable than before when both were a dark shade and blended naturally. Now they don't blend together well at all. I think the new grass and forest ground looks even more fake than the old "random" variations in the tiles.
  
  
  -Also, the old grass/sand or "beach" tile is still here and sticking out on the edges of the new look desert. The new desert tile looks good in a way, but it still seems to me the now more detailed desert tile compared to it's surrounding plain grass tiles is a bad blend, which makes the desert edges seem even more "square" than before.
  
  
  -The new "rock" floor tile looks like grey mud. I think there isn't anybody who thinks it looks better than the old "bunch of gravel" tile. The "hedges" objects looks like somebody painted some shining gloss on the top, it doesn't look good at all and hurts the eye. The "street" floor tiles looks ok I guess, but it looks more like grey desert sand to me.
  
  
  -The color of the background for the inventory of bags and depot is too dark to see a lot of the items. I think one of the problems in the difference of opinion is the color contrasts of computers or monitors. I've noticed that in my home PC, when I look at the first page of the website, I CANNOT see the picture of the elves, the depot, and tables, behind the title word Illarion, and the background of the website is completely black. I can barely only make out a tiny bit of blue in the background, and my monitor is set on the maximum brightness already. But when I use a Macintosh or a Dell PC to browse the site, I can see the picture clearly, as well as the patterns in the blackground. It seems that everything is brighter then. Perhaps the graphics designers are using a "brighter" monitor so the background of the inventory didn't look so dark to them? I also notice that the new grass floor tiles graphic does not seem so bright for me and other North Americans, while Shi Long was talking about "getting eye-cancer". Is it possible that in Germany or Europe most people their computers from a different company than North America that has brighter monitors?
  
  
  -"skill-level displayed by color not bar graph to stop the senseless talks about skills"
  In my opinion, this idea is a bit outdated. We've come a long way to promote lesser ooc talk in game and I think the results were pretty good. Today, you don't hear very often people saying things like this "My parry is near the second R", so it's not a big problem anymore. Nowadays, the things that people always say are "My blacksmithing hasn't moved a single milimeter in 2 weeks!". They are frustrated by seeing a lack of progress, and this new even more vague, less clear display of the skill value will only make them even more frustrated and complain about skills even more than before in my opinion.
  
  
  -Well, the male and female halfling don't seem to match... The male halfling looks like a poor beggar, while the female halfling has the huge red beautiful dress.
  
  
  -Eliza has lost her name and the NPCs are now (5)someone and (6)someone.
  
  
  -The duplication of buckets bug is back again.
  -> fixed (Shi'voc)
  
  
  -The new graphic for the "loom" object looks more like a painting canvas than a loom. But more importantly it is so big that part of it is hidden behind a nearby table.
  
  
  -Then new scroll buttons for the inventory is "Left, Right, Close" instead of the old "Right, Left, Close", it's just a tiny bit annoying.
  
  
  -The new graphics for "insides" looks like a cookie with swirls and icing or some kind of danish.

I appreaciate the effort from the development team and graphics designers, and I thank you very much for your efforts. But most people seem to agree that some of the graphics took a step backwards and that this update wasn't planned so well, with all the bugs and missing graphics, etc.

I think exactly what everyone has been trying to say and, well, put across I a much better way.

Guingalan,

Maybe it would be useful to make this topic "sticky" so that hopefully people won't start more threads about their problems.

Also no masterblacksmith that I've met has been able to make the 'Dwarven axe'.
Just 'Average' ones are able to do it.

We should also make a way to toggle the "XXXXX has just arrived in Illarion " messages on and off. It's peacefully quiet, and really great when an unexpected friend comes over to see you! But for those very important meetings, or some other thing, we should be able to toggle it.

Just in case... I really can't think of any cons to this new system, but I'm sure some people are used to it and don't mind it, and it's informative, so perhaps a simple button press could do it? Maybe F10 or something?

Err... F11 turns off color bars, F12 shows names... yes, F10 ought to do...

Dyluck the axe you mentioned can only be made by dwarves. IT's one of them "Racial" items. I think in future clients more will be made for humans, elves, hobbits, orcs, Lizardmen too. Possibly in the future the other races like Gnomes, Fearies, and goblins will be created and will be able to make racial items too.

Another problem you neglected to mention. The sheep now appear to be some massive poodle like creature, take a look and you will see what I mean.

I found something too.
There is no graphic for the "yeg jus"-spell.

@Elkrim when you download the patch then you can see the graphik for this spell.

Sevious: I can make the axes, and I am not a dwarf!

Yes, I do think the sheep looks more like a poodle than a sheep.

I must get myself one of those pet sheep! The "Harvery the Hound" tongue.

@Shivoc and Alatar: Thanks.

@Sevious: I didn't mention anything about the axe, Caranthir did.

@Erdrick: The arrival messages was taken out before the client update and there was a lot of discussion about it already. The arrival messages won't be coming back, at least not in that form.

For anyone who hasn't noticed it, there's a link added to my first post where you can download a patch to solve the invisible graphics problem.

Another problem: When you first log into the game, you cannot turn your character to face another direction until you have moved first.

And does anybody else find that they walk more slowly now and their turning speed is more slower or sluggish now?

@Dyluck I agree, this "client update" was not too well-planned, and while there have been some good additions like vines, a lot of the "updates" have taken a turn for the worse. I also find that my character moves slower in game now. As well, the illarion server seems to be malfuctioning a whole lot lately...many times now since the client update it has frozen.

I agree with Elaralith, the server has crashed when I was online three times today...

I hope it's just a bad day.

Well, all in all im sure you would all agree this is a good, well made and much thought about update for the game. Very nice.

Also all the 'patches' that you need to search through all the threads on the message borad for fixing this and updating that is a a pain. How about putting them all in once place.

Nothing like a well made and planed update I say.

[edited by kringin]
-my menu does not scroll smoothly.
-there are multiple images of people everyonce in a while

Good luck.

only thing i really dont like about the update is the server crashing so much, i know they are working as hard as they can but it is quite annoying

Your wizard's hat has not disappeared, it is invisible. The problem of invisible graphics has been mentioned too many times already, and on this thread too. Please don't be so lazy and read everything in the thread first.

Yep, I sorta miss the way it used to look like. I'm trying my best to make it look like it used to. So far I have downloaded the "Classic Tiles." It wasn't that bad of a change though. Just some of the tiles. The water looks better. However, I miss the way it used to be, so I think I'm keeping my classic tiles.

Drathe wrote:Also all the 'patches' that you need to search through all the threads on the message borad for fixing this and updating that is a a pain. How about putting them all in once place.

... like .... the download page?

Dyluck wrote:Eliza has lost her name and the NPCs are now (5)someone and (6)someone.

Haven't read this before, although I thought I read everything (except the proposal board yet).
If this is true, Eliza should be shown as "Bror" to some players, since I have the same number.

Are there links to alternative game floor tile downloads there? That was what I was refering to.
Tho I admit I did not state that.

Haven't read this before, although I thought I read everything (except the proposal board yet).

@Bror Please read the many proposals on the proposal board soon! It would be appreciated so much if the ideas posted there were known and taken into account by the illarion staff.
Thank you!
-Elaralith

bror is not the only one who can read them...
there are other staff members reading most (or even all) of the proposals...
just because bror has no time yet to read them all it doesn't mean there is noone looking at them...

@Shi'voc Good to hear!

I read all the messages in English in the General, Proposals, Technical Support and Newbies forums.

I used to read all the messages in RPG and Guilds, but haven't hte time lately.

Incidently, the new client was rushed a bit by the negative player bug. The only way to fix it was to put out a new client. Which was done as soon as could be done.

@Bror: I think most people lost all their names after upgrading to the new client, so not many people would have "Bror" as that number.
Anyways, I don't think anybody else mentioned this problem on the boards, I noticed it and put it there myself.

There is a workaround for the name problem. It should work for Win9x systems but requires some experience with a hex editor.
I'm almost sure the programmers know what I'm talking about, but if not then PM me and I'll explain it.

I'm not going to tell any player about it. The programmers have to decide weather or not this solution is published.

Also, if you use alt-tab to minimize the client temporarily, when you return sometimes the graphics become messed up, some objects become invisible, some item graphics turn into a white box (the type that Astral made a screenshot of), and your health bar graphic becomes missing and it looks as if your health is empty, but it is not and you are not dead.