Update Notes: May 9, 2017

[srand]

Graphics:

Serbule has had a great deal of its art overhauled and improved. As a side-effect, some items and NPCs are in slightly different places. But everything should still exist. (Please report it if it doesn't!)

There are also many code optimizations that should help with performance. These should help everywhere - not just Serbule - but you are more likely to run into problems in Serbule.

THERE ARE SEVERAL GRAPHICS PROBLEMS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT:

#1: If your game crashes after the update (or takes 3+ minutes to load the area, which is a kind of crash), try this work-around FIRST:

1. Open the Options menu. This is gear-shaped icon towards the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.
2. Hit the button for Graphics, then the Advanced Overrides button at the bottom of that panel.
3. Click the Override checkbox next to "Water Quality" and move the slider to 2.
4. The higher values of Water Quality -- quality levels 3 and 4 -- can cause crashes on some video drivers, and this is the current workaround. (You are basically disabling reflections in the water.)

If the game crashes immediately after you log in, leaving you unable to change the configuration settings before it crashes, USE A DIFFERENT CHARACTER, OR start the game in Safe Mode from the launcher.

It can also be helpful to reboot after a crash, because video drivers are crap.

If your game continues to crash after you try this work-around, please follow the steps on the wiki for reporting a client crash: http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/H...a_Client_Crash


#2: If you are running on Fantastic and get a severe framerate hiccup every few seconds, you need to turn off "sky reflection probes" in the advanced options:

1. Open the Options menu. This is gear-shaped icon towards the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.
2. Hit the button for Graphics, then the Advanced Overrides button at the bottom of that panel.
3. Click the Override checkbox next to "Sky Reflection Probles" and click the Enable button so that it is disabled.

#3: If the game is too dark at night, enable "Brighter World":

1. Open the Options menu. This is gear-shaped icon towards the bottom of the right-hand sidebar.
2. Hit the button for Graphics.
3. Check the "Brighter World" checkbox.

#4: Graphics have changed. For general performance problems, try turning off all your old overrides and set your graphics quality to at least Good. You can bump up the quality and test out the overrides from there.

(Also note that there are now several more intermediary levels of "Water Quality". If you had manually overridden your water quality to be at max value, you should change it, because the old max value is now just mediocre.)


BONUS #5: "Help, my character is stuck and I can't log in!"

Normally the best thing to do here is to log in with a DIFFERENT character (or make a new one -- the newbie island's graphics requirements are intentionally low), then lower your graphics and turn off all advanced overrides, and then try to log in again with your stuck character. But if nothing works and you really want to un-stick your character, you can use the special /unstickchar command. Log in with a different character, and type this into the chat box (no quotes): "/unstickchar OtherPerson", where OtherPerson is the name of your stuck character. That character will be teleported to the newbie island, allowing you to log in with them.