2003 January - March April - June July - September October - December

2004 January - March April - June July - September October - December

2005 January - March April - June July - September October - December

2006 March

-> Back to the History home

April 2005

April 1
In an effort to increase revenue, a small number of tasteful and unobtrusive advertisements have been added to the site (It's an April Fool's joke).

The way stat gains from fights are calculated has been changed to scale a little bit more smoothly as the monsters you're fighting go up in power. The net effect is a slight increase in gains, overall.

April 3
Some more minor changes were made to the Council quest structure. They now give you a quest at level 2 that opens up the Distant Woods.

Xenophobe fixed that annoying thing with the chat where it'll jump around while you're trying to read stuff in the backlog. It only autoscrolls if you're actually at the bottom, now. This should make it a lot easier to copy text from the backlog.

April 5
A new chat command, /switch [channel] was added. This puts you in another chat channel without unlistening the channel you're leaving.

April 7
I found a weird mistake in the fight code that determines the rate at which items drop from monsters. The fix to this will, I suspect, reduce the overall drop rate, but make item drop bonuses (from skills, buffs, and enchantments) work better. Evidence gathered over the next few days will make the situation clearer.

April 10
I'm aware of the problems with the forums and images, and I'm working on getting them resolved right now.

The Character Sheet now has links to manage your Mall store and your collection, if you've got a Mall store or a collection. Or both. Also, the name of the player who buffed you is now clickable in buff notifications, and takes you to that player's profile.

April 11

Fixed a minor bug where certain channels weren't showing up when you did a /listen in chat.

April 12
Fixed a bug in the fight code that was making the monster's chance of hitting get calculated based on your base Moxie, rather than your modified Moxie. Thanks, Thisguy!

April 20
I've made some changes to the way the Clan Karma system works. Clan leaders can now set an exchange rate for Meat and Karma, and each clan ranking can be given a daily Karma expenditure limit. Existing ranks (which used to be unlimited) were set to 10,000. Members without ranks will not be able to use the stash until they are assigned a rank with a value.

Added an option in the account menu to have your contacts' names show up in blue when they talk in the chat.

April 21
/s is now equivalent to /switch in chat.

April 23
I made a slight cosmetic change to the way Meat shows up in trade offers, in response to a dumb new scam technique.

I've set up a new system for trivial updates, which will make it easier to add and keep track of... er... trivial updates.

An [unequip all] option has been added to the equipment pane of the inventory screen.

Some adventures have been added to the Cobb's Knob Harem.

The Crackpot Mystic can now make a white pixel out of a red pixel, a green pixel, and a blue pixel.

April 26
The way dignity gains are calculated from PVP fights has been changed a little bit. If your level is now lower than that of your target, you gain points as though the target was your level, instead.

You can now store up to 20 chat macros (Ten was the previous limit).

April 27
Sorry about the extra-long rollover tonight. I'm a dumbass, and I scheduled a backup (a process that requires a certain amount of babysitting) and then forgot that I had scheduled it, so everything ground to a halt. I'll try to be more careful in the future.

April 29
Due to some random fluctuations in the space-time continuum of Loathing (evidenced mostly by the incomplete Giant Castle quest partially leaking onto the live servers) and a sudden unrelated change in soil pH, any beanstalks you may have planted in the Nearby Plains have withered and vanished.

In other news, there's a new Council quest, which involves the Giant Castle!

In additional other news, two new modes of PvP attack have been introduced: Rank and Flowers. Rank gives a 50% bonus in rank change, but no goodies. Attack for Flowers, and you'll always get a pretty flower if you win.

Lihc eye pies have been altered. They now give you an effect that grants spooky protection for 3 turns. Or perhaps 5. I forget.

April 30
I've made some changes to the way Sauceror skills work. Check this forum post for details.

The drop bonus from Mr. Accessories Jr. has been upped from 10% to 25%.

May 2005

May 1
Disco Bandit skills have been updated. Check this post for details.

The Orcish Frat Boys and the constellations in the HitS have been given initiative values. They were accidentally all set to zero before.

Some adventures have been added to the eXtreme slope.

Skill training costs have been changed. Now, cost = level * 1000. This is much better than the old system, in which cost = [number I pulled out of my ass].

May 2
Moving right along, Accordion Thief skills have been rebalanced and modified. Here's the post.

Fixed a problem with the Tam O' Shanter that made its bonus multiply with familiar bonuses instead of adding. Sorry, but this means less Meat at the high end...

The levels of most of the monsters in the Palindome have been increased. Since the Pirates changed, they were too easy for the point at which the zone opens up.

The Dwarves in Itznotyerzitz Mine now drop Meat.

Spiky Hair has been fixed. Instead of doing nothing, it now does something. Something!

May 3
Seal Clubber skills have been revamped a bit. Check this post for details. Also, I forgot to link to this thread, from yesterday, in which I describe the Pastamancer changes that also went in yesterday.

May 5 (no, really. It's still May 5...)
Happy Cinco de Mayo! There's a brand-new zone, on the Desert Beach. This isn't so much a special event as the introduction of some new permanent content.

May 6
Having a pagoda at your campsite will now give you 3 extra Adventures per day. Yay, Pagoda!

The damage done by the elemental rooms in the Daily Dungeon is now calculated correctly. It was calculated incorrectly before. In case you were wondering.

The Meat drop bonus on the Incredibly Dense Meat Gem was raised to 25.

The Knob sausage and bat-wing stir-fry recipes have been altered. Their base stir-fry ingredients have been switched.

May 9
The Sugar Rush effect is now working as intended. It was previously working as unintended.

May 10
As you may have noticed, there has been a change to the way ranged damage is calculated. This change is NOT permanent. It wasn't supposed to roll to the live servers. It will be modified, one way or another, pretty soon.

Replies to chat PMs should no longer accidentally go to somebody on your baleet list if he/she is the last person that tried to message you.

May 11
As of today, if you get banned in chat more than 9 times, the ban lasts forever. Jackasses beware.

May 16
I added a link to the "manage your collection" page that lets you view it the way other people see it.

Pixel potions are slightly more effective now.

May 17
You can now view other peoples' familiars by clicking the current familiar in their profiles. Also, familiar names can now be up to 40 characters long.

Quotes in your profile can now be up to 500 characters long.

May 22
The interface for making meat paste and stacks has been improved. Or, y'know, changed, at least.

May 24
New feature: The Gift Shop, in Seaside Town's Market Square.

They sell some random social-y items (only a small portion are available now, most are post-ascension content,) and in the back room, you can send people packages full of items and Meat.

The main reason for putting this in right now is to assuage the worries people had about winning radio contests while in ronin or hardcore mode. You can receive the packages from people during these periods, but you can't open them.

Some adventures have been added to Itznotyerzitz Mine (not in disguise.)

May 25
The Distant Woods have been expanded a little bit due to a massive reforestation project on the part of the, umm, Citizens For Making Room For Things, Loathing Local #151.

You can now click on the "Favorite Food" or "Favorite Booze" links in your profile to see a history of everything you've eaten and drunk since I started keeping track of consumption.

May 26
People who own Mall stores now get access to a new chat channel, called /foodcourt. This channel would be a good place to do some of the socializing that's currently done in /trade (hint, hint.)

The shout filter has been disabled in /clan.

May 31
Moxious Manuever has been changed -- its MP cost is now equal to your level.

June 2005

June 1
Minor skill changes: Saucy Salve is no longer usable outside of combat, and Lasagna Bandages now costs 6MP instead of 5, and is usable both in and out of combat.

June 2
There's now an option in the account menu to prevent people from looking into your terrarium.

Magical Mystery Juices now cost 100 Meat instead of 150.

June 3
Some combat changes -- the stats you gain from monsters now tend towards 50% primary, 25%/25% secondary. Ranged damage has been increased, unarmed damage has been decreased.

June 4
The countdown to Ascension begins:

Some food changes (almost all improvements) have been made, and several new recipes have been added. Nothing terribly exciting, just balancing out some early game stuff.

Some of the outlying cocktails (the ones that don't fit into the neat, balanced, symmetrical system we put in place a while ago) have had their stat gains increased. Bloody Mary stat gains went down a little.

June 5

There have been some minor changes to the levels at which zones open up, and to monster levels and rewards. The only really noticable one is Whitey's Grove, which has been made considerably harder and had its stat rewards increased a lot.

June 6

June 7

June 8

The system will go down for maintenance about 3 hours earlier than usual tonight, so we can make sure everything gets properly rolled out to the live servers. It should come back up at the same time it usually does.

The Flea Market has been slightly altered. On the screen where you sell stuff, it'll now show you what things you're selling, and allow you to pull items out.

Some changes have been made to the way certain combat items work. (All of the changes make them MORE effective, not less.) Also, procrastination potions are now usable in combat.

June 9
Pretend there's a giant zero here! Okay, guys, welcome back. If you were further up than the bottom of the Sorceress' Tower, you've been reset to there. Enjoy. Sorry for the relative uninspiredness of this announcement, but, y'know, we're kind of tired... :)

Ascension, the most highly anticipated KoL event (evar.), is finally implemented (almost two years after it was first proposed). Verily, verily the natives rejoice.

June 10
Gah, sorry about that. I made changes to the rollover script last night, and forgot to change them back. I was out, and had my phone turned off. It'll never happen again, I promise. Unless, y'know, it happens again, in which case I'm sorry in advance.

June 14
You can now change the colors of some stuff in chat (channel names, your own name, your contacts' names). Check your account menu for details.

June 18
The Ascendingest Clans board now shows average # of ascensions to two decimal places.

June 19
The MicroMechaMech familiar is now working as it should, instead of failing to not work as it shouldn't.

The Council should now automatically update your top menu pane when they open up a new area to you.

The Crackpot Mystic can now make items in quantity.

June 20
A couple of the post-ascension skills have had their effectivegness igncreased.

June 28
In an effort to improve overall performance, the Mall has been moved to the secondary database server, and the pricing rules have been altered.

The minimum sale price for items in the Mall is now either 100 Meat or twice the item's autosell value, whichever is higher. Prices lower than these limits were automatically adjusted during the transition.

Note that this change is pretty significant on the backend, and if anything goes wrong, we might have to roll the database back to the pre-rollover state. This probably won't happen, but it's a slim possibility. Just a heads up.

Familiars in your terrarium are now listed in order of kills (descending.) The last adventure link in compact mode now has meaningful ALT text. The "Manage Outfits" interface now shows the contents of your custom outfits.

The way days are counted on ascension runs has been fixed. The existing records have been updated accordingly.

June 29
Stuff in stores owned by disabled players no longer shows up in mall searches.