Paragon Chat/Notes

Overview

These are the patch notes for Paragon Chat.

Patch Notes

0.99 Beta

August 23, 2015

• Power icons will now show up for freshly created characters without requiring them to log out and back in first.
• Technology Preview:
  • Added simulated Fly power to test protocol extension for alternate movement types.

0.98f Beta

August 23, 2015

• Technology Preview:
  • Added simulated Super Speed power to test synchronization of power effects.
  • Known issue: Super Speed is not customizable no matter what the tailor claims. Power customization is not yet implemented in either the tailor or on the power itself.

0.98e Beta

August 23, 2015

• Added a fix to prevent the client from resetting the active chat channel to the most recently added global channel when zoning.
• Leaving a global channel will force it to be cleared out of the saved client settings when logging off, to prevent it from being rejoined at next login. Important note: This is only a temporary workaround. In the future it is planned to migrate channel membership serverside so that it is account-wide and tied to a given XMPP account, to more closely imitate the behavior of global channels in traditional COH.
• Fixed an issue with the order of rotations being applied incorrectly on incoming messages when pitch is nonzero.
• Technology Preview:
  • Added simulated Walk and Sprint powers to test alternate movement modes and power tray interaction. Please give these a workout to make sure that the tech works properly.
  • Known issue: The power trays are hardcoded for testing. Changes to their order do not persist across zoning or logging out.

0.98d Beta

August 3, 2015

• Fix bug causing a sporadic crash during loading.

0.98c Beta

August 1, 2015

• Fix Windows XP compatibility. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are encountering the issue of failing to locate your COH installation on Windows XP, you may have to manually redownload ParagonChat.exe and overwrite your existing file with it.
• Eliminate flickering of text on progress bar, and make it easier to read on themes using a dark background color.

.98b Beta

July 31, 2015

• Fix a bug that could cause a crash if a malformed JID was added to your roster by a third party client.
• Optimization and performance improvements.
• Change auto-update mechanism to install new Paragon Chat binaries inside its AppData directory, avoiding UAC issues as well as conflicts with third-party updaters.
• Truncate overly long broadcast/local chat messages instead of exiting on an assertion failure.
• Fix issue where adding someone to your ignore list while also logged in via a third-party XMPP client could cause the list to not be loaded in future sessions.
• Improvements to positioning code to prevent other players from sometimes appearing to slide halfway across the map when first zoning in.
• New slash command /whoall shows a list of all players in the same zone. It also displays diagnostic information indicating if someone is invisible to you, and why.

.98a Beta

July 21, 2015

• Fix an issue that can result in a rare crash of Paragon Chat immediately after login. It could be triggered if users of certain third-party XMPP clients are on your roster (global friends list) and their last action on the account was to go offline using that client while you were also offline.
• Notify the player via an error message in the chat window if their costume does not pass validation and is causing them to be invisible to other players. This only happens in the case of manual database edits, for things like changing the scale to be too large or small. There is no change to the validation behavior; this is just a notification so you know that it's affecting you.
• Unlock a few missed costume parts: Wisps Aura, Resistance hair, Praetorian Clockwork pieces, Sport set.
• Unlock Crab Spider backpacks so they can be used in the tailor.
• Note: The download link above has not been updated to 0.98a; it is still 0.98. This is partly to test the auto-update mechanism.

.98 Beta

July 21, 2015

• Paragon Chat is now able to check for newer versions of itself on startup. It has 4 settings for this option:

Never check

Notify when a new version is available

Automatically install minor upgrades

Automatically install all upgrades

The UI for this is still a work in progress, but it is functional.

• The Launch button is now the default button and will activate when pressing Enter in the login form.
• A workaround has been added to attempt to address the issues encountered by users who have Unicode characters in their user profile path.
• Separating multiple commands with $$ should now work correctly.
• Basic chat variable expansion has been implemented and several of the more common variables have been added, such as $name, $archetype, $origin, $battlecry, and $target.
• Keybinds and window layout are now saved to the database and persisted between sessions. Tray contents are not yet implemented.
• A /roll command for rolling dice has been added. By itself, it will roll a 20-sided die. The results of the die roll are shown to players in local chat range. It takes parameters in several different forms:

/roll 100

Roll a 100-sided die

/roll 3d6

Roll 3 6-sided dice and add them together

/roll @global 2x12

Roll 2 12-sided dice and send the results only to the player @global (not to others in local range)

/roll 4 8

Roll 4 8-sided dice

/roll

Roll a 20-sided die

The maximum number of sides of a die that can be used are 100,000. The maximum number of dice that can be rolled at once is 100. Keep in mind that large dice pools have a higher probability of rolling totals in the middle of the possible range, approximating a bell curve distribution. For multi-die rolls, the individual results can be seen by the player who issued the /roll command in the Combat To-hit roll channel.

As Paragon Chat is a cooperative program it is impossible to guarantee that rolls have not been tampered with, so it should not be used for anything serious that the honor system is not sufficient for.

• The local chat radius in Pocket D has been reduced to 50 feet.
• The /getglobalname and /getglobalsilent commands have been added. This should make player notes more or less functional. Be aware that player notes were not designed for non-unique character names and may run into issues with them.
• An -offline command-line parameter has been added. Running Paragon Chat with this parameter disables all network access requirements and allows you to log in without an Internet connection in order to manage characters, edit costumes, etc.

When running with -offline, the XMPP login form is disabled. Many functions are not available without an XMPP connection. A connection can still be set up manually once loaded into a zone with the various /xmpp advanced commands if desired (see the Slash Command thread for more information).

• The progress bar now provides some text feedback about the task in progress.
• The main window can now be closed while Paragon Chat is still loading.

0.97f Beta

July 14, 2015

• New config file "string.cfg" includes missing P-Strings for many NPC names. This allows them to spawn in the map, and you can override the names (locally) by editing this file.
• Will strongly warn if you try to close Paragon Chat while the City of Heroes client is running. Fixes "Cannot Connect to DBserver" for those who were closing Paragon Chat as soon as the game opened.

0.97e Beta

July 13, 2015

• Fixed yet another cause for the invisible player bug, this one having to do with floating point rounding errors causing inconsistent encoding of face scale sliders at certain border numbers.

.97d Beta

July 12, 2015

• Costume parts with a texture and a mask should once again be selectable.
• Correct product codes are sent to the client to make the tutorial optional.
• Powersets that were formerly purchasable should once again be selectable during character creation.
• Version number added to the main Paragon Chat window as it was being cut off of the title bar on Windows 8 and with certain font sizes.
• The Paragon Chat logo should now be visible on computers running Windows XP.
• The version of Paragon Chat that someone is running can now be seen in the player information window.
• Two new easter egg NPCs added. One is obvious. The other is not.
• Re-instated presence optimization that had been reverted due to invisibility bug.

.97c Beta

July 12, 2015

• Fixed yet another completely different cause for the invisible player bug, this one not related to costumes at all and would also interfere in reception of local chat.
• Enables the Architect building consoles. Clicking on them (or typing /architect while near them) will bring up the Architect UI. Of course you cannot test or play the missions, but if you just want to view and edit your existing mission files, or make new ones, now you can.

.97b Beta

July 12, 2015

• Revert "The zone that your character is in is now correctly only sent to global friends". It was causing characters to randomly not appear after zoning.

.97a Beta

July 12, 2015

• Fixed the capitalization fix to actually work.
• /customwindow <name> will create a new custom window for macros. However, they will not save unless you already have a data/customwindows folder.

.97 Beta

July 11, 2015

• Fixed another possible cause of the invisibility bug.
• New command: /mapmenu opens a menu listing all zones defined in zone.cfg for easy travel.
• Changed the accesslevel reported to the client from 0 to 1. This allows access to the console as well as the /url slash command in order to use the in-game browser. Be advised that the in-game browser is quite old and likely has security holes; use it for trusted sites only.
• Added many more emotes that were previously badged-locked or part of purchasable packs. These will still show up as locked in the menu, but can be used by typing their name.
• Fixed super tailors / cosmetic surgeons to allow gender changes.
• Fixed a great many costume parts to be correctly unlocked both at character creation as well as in the tailor. If you find some are still missing, please report them here.
• Known issue: Choosing a powerset with a custom weapon will cause all costume slots to show up as locked until you visit the tailor. Using the tailor will remove the weapon and unlock the slot. This is a harmless cosmetic issue.
• The case with which you type your login name is now used to set the preferred capitalization of your global handle. It no longer uses the username as reported by the XMPP server, which for Openfire was all lowercase.
• The zone that your character is in is now correctly only sent to global friends. It is no longer leaked to global channels in XMPP presence data. Reverted.

.966 Beta

July 10, 2015

• Added a diagnostic hook to allow developers to gather costume information to track down further invisibility issues.

.965 Beta

July 8, 2015

• The version number is now displayed in the title bar.
• Fixed yet another different cause of the invisible player bug.
• The Ski Chalet is now visible!
• Incoming costumes from other players are validated to ensure their scales are in range and they do not contain any FX that are not designed to be applied to a player costume and might crash your client.
• The 'Store', 'Manage Account', and 'Support' buttons in the in-game browser are no longer completely useless.

.96 Beta

July 8, 2015

• The only change in this version is that hopefully the invisible player bug is fixed. Anyone with 0.96 should be visible to all players.

.95 Beta

July 7, 2015

• Release!