April 14 updates

quoted from the Xsyon updates thread

April 14 2011 8:00 PM PST

Hello everyone,

Those of you playing today know that we are experiencing frequent server crashes today with this build. We didn’t have this problem on the test server so we are working as hard as possible to find out exactly what is causing this.

We’re focused entirely on this issue right now. If the crashes continue over the next few hours, we may rollback to the previous build to see if the crashes are due to something that’s changed on the server.

April 14 2011

Hello everyone!

We’ve finally patched out the latest server and client update. Eliminating the zone crossing lag required big changes that we needed to test thoroughly this past week. This is a major build on the server side and we will be able to patch out more frequent small updates over the next two weeks.

Our new programmers have helped make many optimizations and server improvements, so this build prepares us for changes ahead. I’m really looking forward to the coming months as we start to evolve Xsyon!

In this update:

– New creature AI system with an improved creature behavior system.
– Zone crossing lag eliminated.
– Zone loading times reduced.
– Packets compressed and optimized for reduced bandwidth usage and overal better performance.
– Timing out of crashed players improved to avoid the ‘already timed out’ messages.
– Bug causing some players to scavenge unusual items such as felled trees fixed.
– Many small bugs fixed.

In progress:

– All creatures will be in game soon. We have a few minor behavior variable adjustments to make and test.
– Finalizing a decay system for crafted items.
– Faster tree growth and surface generation system. This will include scrap pile generation.
– Server and client memory use optimization.
– Revised patcher with improved compression for smaller downloads.

These are things we expect to patch out with then next week or two. We are formulating a plan right now for the next 6 weeks and I will post the details as soon as everything has been discussed with the team.

Enjoy!