The second 095 distro service pack has been released and is available from the downloads section. Use it, enjoy it, let me know what's wrong with it.

After an exceedingly long development cycle, we've released POL version 095. At over 1400 lines, the changelog is too long to list here (full changes included with the server), but everyone who has used it says it is faster, leaner, and more reliable, with a ton of really nice documentation. We have a new website at where you can download it, and new php forums are hosted there too.

POL core 095 is out! The distro team has also released updated scripts.

All of the following are available in the "Downloads" section of www.polserver.com:

Windows binaries:

• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-core.zip

Distribution scripts:

• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-scripts.zip

Windows binaries + distribution scripts:

• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-scripts.zip
• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-full-compiled.zip

Linux binaries:

• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-core-linux-slackware.tar.gz
• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-core-linux-redhat.tar.gz
• http://www.polserver.com/downloads/pol095-core-linux-redhat-dynamic.tar.gz

Racalac has put together a documentation website: http://poldoc.fem.tu-ilmenau.de

There are quite a few changes you will have to make to your scripts and configuration files in order to use version 95. Please read upgrade-notes-095.txt for notes on what you have to do.

At 1481 lines, this release has the longest changelog ever. Here are some highlights:

• Unicode speech support
• significant speed improvements
• Better memory usage
• Many crash / exception / exploit fixes
• Linux multithread issues resolved
• Support for 4.0 clients

In a major departure from previous releases, I'm not the only one doing core coding. Racalac and Myrathi have been helping out with core development for the last year or so.

Also, due to changes in source control (death to VSS! Long live CVS!) we'll be able to make maintenance patches for version 95 while we develop version 96.

Roadmap for version 96:

• Native map files. POL won't use map0.mul, statics0.mul etc.
• Incremental saves
• Custom packet hooks
• Pathfinding

The fourth service pack has been released, and it's a doozy. It'll be tough to integrate into a shard that has had a lot of changes made from the distro scripts, but hopefully you'll find it's worth it. There is a link in the Files section, and the changelog is on sourceforge.

Just in case you weren't notified there is a new service pack out for POL 94. Here is the link for it if you need it :

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=20240

Be warned that if you have customized your distro scripts or the itemdesc or the npcdesc files (as if most of us haven't )you have some major work ahead of you to implement it. Best read the readme file and the changes doc first so you know where you may have problems.

Have fun. I know I wil. Yukiko

In case anyone is interested, here's a little PHP script that works with a POL www script and allows you to display server status and online characters in a standard web server. It requires PHP running on your web server, however.

http://www.strangeworld.com/polfiles/polstatus-1.0.0.tar.gz

Ron (our gracious web-board host) has moved the Web-boards to a new and, quite noticably, faster server! As always, click the BOARDS image-link, the "Script Forum" link or the links on the Links page to visit them.

Thanks to Racalac and Ron (aka Thomas Hundhammer), the POL forums are now being hosted on a new server! Click the BOARDS image-link, the "Script Forum" link or the links on the Links page to use them (the old forums, however, could not be transferred across, so see the "old" links to browse the posts -- sorry!)

• Keys now correctly say whether you locked or unlocked something.
• Minor fix to stablemaster pens.
• Books no longer get corrupted under linux.
• Meditation and spellcasting now check both hands rather than checking one hand twice.
• Creatures now keep an array of previous tamers to make it harder to macro taming with a partner.
• Fix to meditation's calculation of increased difficulty from wearing armor.
• Added EVID_GUILD_DISBANDED and _CREATED to eventID.inc.
• Upgraded guildstone package. Now includes Order/Chaos. Should be backwards compatible.
• Moved stafflist out of timers package and into its own package. This required modifying scripts/start.src, which called the old version.
• Fix for incorrect placement of bantiles in large towers.
• Forensic Eval given some TLC.
• Tinker traps can only be set on containers.
• You can no longer gain begging skill by begging yourself of animals.
• You can no longer gate, recall, or teleport into Green Acres. Destroys runes marked in GA.
• Fixed a loophole that allowed building in cities. Also, you can't build in GA anymore unless you are staff.
• If you log in inside a house you neither own nor are friended to, you should be booted outside.
• You no longer get two motd windows on logging in.
• Paralyze takes your resist into account for calculating the duration.
• When you are hit while casting a spell, it checks your wrestling skill and not your hiding skill to see if you lose your concentration.
• Fixed the background gump picture for the pouches.
• spellrestrictions.inc now correctly checks for Magic Reflection.
• NPCs using warriorCombatEvent.inc now should restock their bandages.
• You can no longer prevent someone from casting spells/using skills by not responding to their rez gump.
• propedit should no longer blow away array props.
• Spellcasting no longer causes you to lose regs even if you don't have enough mana to cast it.

• Full Unicode support.
• User configurable allowable stats on character creation (to support newer clients).
• Support for item facings 0-100 (mainly for lighting effects, POL used to only support facings 0-31).
• Added initial support for client fastwalk prevention.
• Various bugfixes for multis and "reportables".
• Started groundwork for future packet hook support.
• Various other fixes and enhancements (see core-changes.txt for details).

I just wanted to say a few words about the 093 core.

093 was never meant to be used on live shards. It is a transition core- meant to make it easier to convert your scripts from 092 to 094, and meant to be run in a test environment.

There are a number of known bugs with 093 that exist in neither of 092 or 094. Yes, this is a bit wierd. But it will NOT be fixed- or rather, they ARE fixed, in 094. If you are using 093 as the core for your live server you are highly encouraged to continue your upgrade all the way to 094 and then if you like to the up and coming 095.

Madman Across the Water

This doesn't mean it doesn't work, just that it's smaller than it might have otherwise been. It contains a fix for an interesting exploit that allowed players to give their characters arbitrary command levels. The exploit requires a fair amount of work from the player's side- it can't be done with just the client. A link to the SP can be found in the files section. Special thanks to zaqwerty_2002 for informing us of the security hole, and to Tharaxis for testing the fix for me.

I forgot to mention- I uploaded the 093 core to the pol-announce files section. Links have been added to the files section from this site. It was meant to be released alongside the 094 core and after all the time between the last time I worked with 093 and the actual release, we all just kinda forgot about it. If you are already working with 094, there's no reason to care. For those converting from 092 to 094, it's meant to be a stepping stone core, which works with most of both of 092 and 094, so you can upgrade your scripts piecemeal.

The Links Page has been given yet another overhaul... This time a couple of the links have been fixed, descriptions updated (no links had to be deleted because the associated websites are now functional, again! woohoo!), a couple of new shard websites have been added and all the links have been updated to open in new windows! If you notice anything else amiss or would like your shard to appear on the Links Page, use the submission link to let us know!

"The 094 core and distro are finally done and released. I know you've all been waiting an awfully long time- we appreciate your patience. Go hit the Files section and start downloading!

If you want the complete release, core plus distro, there are several ways to get it. Download either of the Complete Server downloads; or download just the core executable and then get the scripts. Both complete downloads and the Core downloads are all currently hosted on Yahoogroups, which has a bad habit of sometimes cutting off downloads, which is why you might want to try getting the smallest download off of yahoogroups and getting the rest from Sourceforge, which is hosting the Scripts.

POL v0.94 has been released. This version of POL completely changes the way skills and stats work in POL. In essence, skills and stats are no longer tied to skill ID's or STR/INT/DEX, which allows skills and stats to be scripted independently. Scripters can script an unlimited number of skills and create new stats with POL 094.

Because of this major change, the entire script base for POL 094 had to be rewritten. The script distribution team took this opportunity to completely rewrite and debug the entire POL 094 script base to create the most bug free and user friendly script base POL has ever had."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that POL's 094 release is, well, released. It's been a long road, and a lot of work, and most of you have been unspeakably patient with us- for this, we thank you.

Now that this is out, the Distro team plans on a system of "Service Pack" releases to expand the functionality of the distro as we improve it, without waiting for core releases. There will, of course, always be distro releases with each core, but as we find and fix bugs and add features, you will not have to wait until the next core release.

What's new in 094?

Wow. A lot. The skill and stat systems have been ripped out and redone, allowing for incredibly more flexibility. Unfortunately, this means scripts from 092 and before will likely not run on 094- many uo.em functions have vanished, been introduced, or changed. If you are having trouble upgrading your scripts, be sure to read core-changes.txt, and feel free to stop by the POL-Scriptforum and ask questions. Also, you can pay a visit to the POL IRC channel: #pol, at irc.stratics.net. I'll confess I haven't been there as much as I used to be lately, but I'll try to change that.

The distro has been rewritten from the ground up. For this, we have a lot of people to thank, people who tested and coded and posted to pol-distro, but more than anyone else we have Bishop Ebonhand and Michael Branin to thank for the 094 distro. It is the most featureful and solid, bugfree distro that POL has ever seen.

What's coming up?

The 095 core is already being worked on. The primary addition it will have is support for unicode.

Where is it?

This release is a little more complicated than ones in the past as far as downloading the release. The POL website is not currently sitting on a connection that can handle the rush of all of you downloading the new release. As such, the files are living in the pol-announce files section. The problem with this is that yahoogroups has a bad habit of cutting off downloads and then claiming they were completed, leaving you with bad and corrupt zips. So, there are three ways you can download it:
1) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pol-announce/files/POL094/pol094comp.zip

This is the entire release, compiled and ready to go. It is also the largest download, at 4M, and therefore the most likely to have yahoogroups screw it up.

Slightly smaller is:
2) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pol-announce/files/POL094/pol094.zip

This is the release, except you will need to compile the scripts once you've downloaded it. This one is 2.8M.

Finally,
3) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pol-announce/files/POL094/pol094core.zip

This 969k zip file contains just the core executables. Once you have them, download the rest of the release from SourceForge-
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=20240andrelease_id=84628

Unzip them both and put them together and you have the same thing as
(1), scripts compiled and everything.

We are working on getting more mirrors up. Check the web site at pol.tumbolia.org for updates on that.

I wrote this email before modifying the POL website, but as soon as I have that updated, you can ignore the above info and just go to pol.tumbolia.org - I will link from there to the various places from which you can download the files.

Thank you for using POL! If you have trouble getting the files, feel free to email me at burra@alum.rpi.edu; if you have trouble with POL in general, stop in at the pol-scriptforum yahoogroup or the IRC channel."

Wonders never cease! After a stupidly long time, the links on this page have been updated and the Links Page is now more up-to-date. :-)

As for core versions, development is still on-going... the team just took a sort-of unannounced "break" over the last few months while the newest cores-to-be (093/094!) were being tested by our dedicated core-test group! ;-)

As always, the latest release cores are still available via the Files link above.

If you want notified when core, distro (script) and documentation "packs" are released (which are now developed as individual "modules") be sure to follow the POL Announce link, above, and subscribe to the YahooGroup mailing list. Syzygy, Madman and myself will post to it when new stuff appears (or when "service packs" are available, in the case of the distro and docs) :-)

Hopefully, the site should be getting updated a weeee bit more often and, time permitting, will be getting its much-deserved face-lift as well! :-D

-Myrathi

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

submissions@poldev.dynip.com - unrouteable mail domain "poldev.dynip.com"

Look a news item!

I've admitted it before, I make a sucky webmaster. So, this page is moving to a faster connection and getting new, more attentive (I hope) webmasters in Myrathi and Madman Across the Water (and crew). The new address is http://pol.tumbolia.org/, so please update your bookmarks! I'd appreciate it if everyone downloads their POL servers from there in the future.

I'd like to remind everyone of where to get help for POL. Firstly, there are the webboards (http://pub73.ezboard.com/bpoldiscussionboards) where you can get a good bit of help. Most of the discussion and question answering goes on in the POL yahoogroups. Set your web browser to and search for the following group: pol-scriptforum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pol-scriptforum/ - everyone interested in POL should sign up for this one. If the flood of messages overwhelms you, you can set your subscription to send out one daily mail with all the day's mails inside.

Please don't send questions directly to any of the developers, instead use these forums. - Racalac