AVWW Beta 0.916 "The Black Wind Shows" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/03/avww-beta-0916-black-wind-shows.html

This one is the first of what we expect to be two releases for today.  The main reason we're pushing this one early is that it has such major CPU usage enhancements in it that we really wanted to get that into the hands of folks as soon as possible.

But it also has a few other tweaks, the most notable of which is that the wind on the world map is now a visible thing that not only is shown blowing but also darkens the tiles it covers.  This is something that players have wanted for a good while, so that they can have a better visual barometer of just how much they have pushed the winds back on their continent.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.

[keith.lamothe]

I wonder if anyone will go back in time to prevent that pun.

[x4000]

 

[Bluddy]

Nice to see you finally got that CPU usage bug. I'll give it a spin soon.

[Toll]

Is anyone else having problems downloading the update? It's found and all, and it starts downloading... kindof. It's stuck at 0% though.

[Toll]

If I go to the .xml-file and download it through the direct HTTP link (http://avww.s3.amazonaws.com/AVWW916.zip), it just sits there doing nothing, so it doesn't seem to be limited to the in-game downloader. Hrm.

EDIT: Oh, hey, there we go. Only took three or four minutes for it to go past 0%.

[x4000]

Nice to see you finally got that CPU usage bug. I'll give it a spin soon.

Sweet, thanks!  Hopefully this is actually the one you were seeing; I never was seeing it to a noticeable degree until the last couple of versions when there were some places with unusual entity densities, but the issue was definitely not new and would have happened in prior versions as well.  So it certainly wasn't helping, one way or the other, but the real question is "was this the only one?"

If I go to the .xml-file and download it through the direct HTTP link (http://avww.s3.amazonaws.com/AVWW916.zip), it just sits there doing nothing, so it doesn't seem to be limited to the in-game downloader. Hrm.

EDIT: Oh, hey, there we go. Only took three or four minutes for it to go past 0%.

Sounds like Amazon S3's servers were having some slowness updating the copy of that file nearest to you to their cache.  That happens from time to time, but usually resolves itself within 3 hours at the worst, and faster in most cases.  Kind of annoying, but still beats most services on price and reliability, so that's good in general.

[zebramatt]

Huzzah!

[Hyfrydle]

On Tolls server I can see the darkened turbulent water but on all four continents I can't see any wind on land. Is this correct?

Just loaded my SP world and on land wind shows up fine so I'll raise this in Mantis.

[MaxAstro]

Oh no, this update caused me to lose all my weapon exp!  ...er, wait... 

In any case, definitely a "huzzah!" for visible windstorm - it's the one thing I really felt made the game feel "incomplete".

[KDR_11k]

Unfortunately that CPU fix does not fix the extreme slowdown caused by the consciousness shards spawned by dead fairies.

[x4000]

Unfortunately that CPU fix does not fix the extreme slowdown caused by the consciousness shards spawned by dead fairies.

Okay, that's good to know -- thanks.  Will have to see what we can find there.

[x4000]

Next version tomorrow morning, I think.  Been hunting performance stuff all day today (with a few side jaunts) and most of yesterday as well, and I don't want to release a potentially buggy(ier) version and then go off to sleep.  Though things are seeming good from what I can tell.

One question: are people able to duplicate that whole "allied monsters falling through the map in battlefield missions" thing in solo?  Or is that MP only?  I'm not seeing it in my current working build, so I don't know if I'm just not reproing it right or if that was something that was inadvertently fixed as part of some other fix.

[freykin]

I just had that happen to me about half an hour ago in .916, in single player. All the allied and about half the enemy forces went underground, meaning I soloed all the towers, and the three clockwork probes that appeared. So it's definitely happening in single player, at least on my end.

[eRe4s3r]

Duplicated in Solo.. also another issue cropped up

Illari are taking the floaty part a bit too literal