Release Notes 2009-02-24

Always Be Closing

Mostly behind the scenes stuff today, but there are a few user serviceable parts in today's release:


 * When you close a Group chat tab, it now stays closed for the remainder of your session. You have to select that Group from the chat menu (in the lower left corner) to reopen the tab during that session. It will not be automatically reopened.
 * Fixed some of the URLs we use in emails sent to users to hopefully be less confusing to mail readers.
 * Tightened up some anonymous account bits: they can't friend someone until they register, they can't submit support requests, they can't create or list items, they can't send Whirled mail.
 * Anonymous accounts once again use the Ghost as their default avatar instead of the Tofu. Note: permaguests can buy and wear avatars, so don't assume all guests are going to be Ghosts.
 * Added a "Go to your new room" link to the UI when you buy a new room.
 * Nixed the door that was automatically added to new rooms. There's no particular style of door or place we can sensibly link in every single room.
 * We now display "Connecting..." while the Flash client is connecting to the servers instead of 0% so that you can tell when we're connecting versus when we're downloading the room's decor.
 * The "reconnect" button is not longer incorrectly displayed while you're moving between rooms (indeed, now it says "Connecting..." since that's what's going on).
 * Fixed a problem with MOBs (only used right now by Ghosthunters).
 * Fixed some layout issues in the game lobby when people's names are uberlong.
 * Fixed a problem with anonymous accounts saying "You just made it to Level 0!"
 * Added a link to Whirled while we're loading the client in an embed: more users == more fun!
 * Fixed some problems in links in the Flash client that had member names in them with funny characters.

That's all for now. Please enjoy this small raft of tweaky changes.

[Edit: One other thing, we're also trying to resurrect our tradition of giving our releases mildly amusing names. Please feel free to humiliate any Whirled engineer that does a release and fails to give it a clever and amusing name. That doesn't mean you can humiliate them if you don't think the name is amusing enough, only if they forget to name it entirely. We are only engineers after all, we're trying hard enough just to overcome our nerdiness. Being funny is a whole new challenge.]