PTR Patch Notes B.0.4.0

[PyromonkeyGG]

Welcome Townies!

Here are the patch notes for the PTR patch 0.4.0. We hope these will be going live very soon as long as nothing breaks

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed a bug where people would sometimes get a blank screen after logging in.
* Improvements to the shop search box.
* Fixed various characters hanging animations to not replay.

New Features:
* Reporting system! Click the report button in game to report someone for misconduct. Read the Code of Conduct in the Terms of Use here: http://www.blankmediagames.com/legal/termsofuse.html
* Achievements now give coins! The amount of Town Points the achvs give has been adjusted. We want to make sure you can get enough points so you can buy your favorite non-theme item in the shop for free
* Customization Settings - You can now choose (in the customization screen) to hide your customization options from other people in the game, hide other peoples customization options and show/hide pets. This will help people who feel they are being targeted for using a certain skin or for those whose computers can't handle some of the new animations of characters or 15 pets running around in a game.
* 2 new houses - The Witches Hovel and Tiki Hut houses are live with this patch and are in the shop.
* Adding the Dlive and Ohmwrecker character skins (free to all beta players) and adding the DarkRevenant skin to the shop. More characters and pets coming soon.
* Adding featured items to the homepage - You will get to see two featured items that the devs really like and recommend if you are looking to purchase something from the shop.

[RoyTheHero]

link please :3

[iggyvolz]

http://www.blankmediagames.com/TownOfSalem/PublicTestRealm/Login0_4_0.swf - Manual view

[Vertigo]

I have a few questions/comments, if that is OK:

1. Is there an explanation of how the reporting system works somewhere? I used it on the PTR once, and all I saw (no offense intended to hardworking devs at a game I very much enjoy) was a button next to each person's name, clicking on which gave a "report submitted" message.

2. Given this system. how do the persons reviewing the reports know what the issue was? Sometimes players spam "Heil Hitler" quite obviously, but they might also have made an inappropriate comment days back, buried in the chat log or in an anonymous death note.

3. Given this system, how do reporting players know if they are using the system properly? Will the results of reports be communicated to the reporting parties?

4. The Terms of Use to which you linked seem to be both under- and over-inclusive (again, no offense intended). Certain conduct that is widely agreed to be cheating, such as revealing fellow mafia members, does not appear to be covered by the TOU. I'm not 100% sure I see where using multiple accounts would be banned, either. On the other hand, the TOU state that any departure during live play is a violation (Sec. V.M) . Players sometimes have to leave for valid reasons, and I know mods on the forum have acknowledged as much in the past.

Again, not trying to be difficult. Thank you for your time!

[tibs]

To be honest, I hate reporting systems, especially in games such as Salem which already have ignore functions that can easily be used to avoid someone being terribly annoying or offensive. I don't want to be overly critical or a jerk or anything, so please don't take it that way, but I want to offer my feedback and hopefully even gather some clarification...

I'm somewhat bothered by 'spamming' and the vague definition of offensive/sexual (does someone deciding to call themselves Butt etc. then become reportable? I imagine someone out there will think that's the case), most especially the spamming since annoying people is a common tactic used by jesters and it's considered all in good fun in my experience-- and a dead giveaway, sometimes, but it's fun to see who decides to abstain or lynch a spammy player.

But, most concerning to me is: Why is "Logging out or exiting the Game during live game-play." considered an offense? As someone with horrible internet and a short attention span, I find that terribly unfair. If I have to go afk or turn off my computer suddenly, or if my internet crashes, or if I'm not enjoying myself and have a useless role or if I'm already dead anyhow, why shouldn't I be free log out or exit? (In some of those cases, it's completely unavoidable.)

Also, to address Vertigo's concern, I wouldn't want to see it become a reportable offense to rat out one's own team. That makes the game more 'real,' really. I don't personally do it, and get agitated when I'm mafia and someone dead does it, but I mean... You've seen the mafia movies, right? When there's nothing left to gain or lose, sometimes the birdy sings... so to speak.

[chitownmvp01]

Am I supposed to gain points for achievements I earned before the update?

[chitownmvp01]

Another suggestion I give to the code of conduct is that anyone who uses skype with other players in the same game can be reported and banned. I have noticed people using skype as a way to cheat. For example, in a game when I was GF, another mafia member was skyping with the witch, and told the witch that I was the GF! As a result, the witch controlled me the entire game, and I was never able to kill who I wanted to kill. This is clearly cheating, and the usage of Skype in Town of Salem Games should be banned!

[iggyvolz]

Using Skype is not bannable... cheating with skype is bannable though. We skype all the time but we don't say roles (unless it's basically the end of the game and we know who is who).

[PyromonkeyGG]

More information about the reporting system, as well as improvements to it, are coming soon. We will be tweaking the code of conduct to include more ToS specific misconduct such as gamethrowing.

[scythesensei]

I don't think we are getting points for achievements just got two vigilante ones points still 0 not sure if this is me being super unlucky or something else odd

[iggyvolz]

I don't think we are getting points for achievements just got two vigilante ones points still 0 not sure if this is me being super unlucky or something else odd

They're overhauling the achievements system - points won't award as normal yet.

[BlueTheGirl]

i just played a game... by myself

[SonOfAMedic]

* Adding the Dlive and Ohmwrecker character skins (free to all beta players) and adding the DarkRevenant skin to the shop. More characters and pets coming soon.

Might I suggest a Magnasword skin?

[townofsalem21]

I wonder why it's 0.4.0, shouldn't it be 0.3.4, because this is the first PTR (and live) patch after 0.3.3? But good work guys, I'm now really waiting for the Achievement browser! .

[chitownmvp01]

I think they need to have guidelines for people using Skype that follow the code of conduct and prevent cheating through it.

[PyromonkeyGG]

I wonder why it's 0.4.0, shouldn't it be 0.3.4, because this is the first PTR (and live) patch after 0.3.3? But good work guys, I'm now really waiting for the Achievement browser! .

The larger patches with features in them get their own 0.x.0 version. Such as this one coming up. The achv browser will move us up to 0.5.0 and the final patch before we release will probably be 0.6.0 and have the custom death animations, custom lastwills/death notes and more. Then we will officially release with 1.0.0

[PyromonkeyGG]

I think they need to have guidelines for people using Skype that follow the code of conduct and prevent cheating through it.

The code of conduct will be getting tweaked as the need arises but right now we are focused on getting 0.4.0 to live

[RoyTheHero]

so far i got three glitches,1 is that for some reason almost everyone is invisible,2 is the screen goes half white in the morning sometimes,3 is each time i got to the customization screen its never finishes the loading bar

[iggyvolz]

1 and 2 are the same glitch - sometimes the character doesn't load which is glitch 1. Then, when the person dies:

John Hathorne died. Game, make screen go to (X-coordinate of John Hathorne's dead body), (Y-coordinate of John Hathorne's dead body)

Okay. *looks for John Hathorne's dead body* OH GOD I CAN'T FIND IT!
Umm... umm... umm... NEGATIVE ONE!!!

Okay, go to (-1,-1)

Negative one, gotcha. But negative one isn't a "uint" (from 0 to 4,294,967,295), so I'll wrap that around to make it 4,294,967,294. So I go to (4294967294,4294967294) *wraps screen hundreds of times* Okay, there ya go!

[PyromonkeyGG]

Yeah 1 and 2 are known issues and once 1 is fixed, as iggy said, 2 will be fixed as well.

3 was already fixed, try clearing your cache

[Demetri]

Sucks I got most of the achievements.

[PyromonkeyGG]

Sucks I got most of the achievements.

Then you will have lots of points after the patch

[Demetri]

Sucks I got most of the achievements.

Then you will have lots of points after the patch

Really? Yay!

[tibs]

On a similar note to my last post, while I don't think it's right/fair at all to penalize people for disconnecting whenever no matter the reasons, I do wish there were an option to reconnect after your internet drops out or glitches. Is that something we'll see in the future, or is there some technical reason it doesn't exist? I get so frustrated when I'm kicked out because of my internet dropping or a server hiccup (usually the former) in the middle of a great round.

[AsianNinjaChik]

Will we ever be getting our Kickstarter fairies back?Ｉmiss that little guy :'c