Release Notes for 6.18.2008
Katrina II Release
Transaction History Page
We have made many improvements to the Transaction History page to make it a more efficient means of keeping track of your transactions in There. (Buying, Selling, TryIts, etc)
- You should now be able to view several months of transactions without crashing your profile page
- You can set the number of transactions to be displayed per page
- You can use the export tool to save your Transaction History in a .csv file.
- Members can view all buy/ lend/ trade/ try it/trade functions immediately in the Transaction page
Neighborhood Escrow Page Redesign
A better user interface has been incorporated into the Neighborhood Escrow Page. Neighborhood owners will now be able to identify key Neighborhood information, rental information and escrow information with greater ease.
For starters, the Neighborhood account balance has been added to the top of the Escrow page so that you can see the Zone balance with a quick glance. The T$ balance will display in green when positive and red when negative.
The following information has been added to the page in three new categories:
1. Neighborhood Information, which includes:
· Neighborhood Name
· Neighborhood Owner
· Neighborhood Size
· Neighborhood DOID
· Number of Tenants
· Number of Lots
· Owner Lots
· Tenant Lots
2. Rental Information, which includes:
· Rental Due Date
· Rental Amount
· Neighborhood Drop Date
3. Escrow Information, which includes:
· Link to Neighborhood Finance Information Article
· Link to Escrow Excel Spreadsheet Output
The credit and debit columns for the Neighborhood Escrow Account Column and the Owner Account Column in the Neighborhood Balance Sheet section have not changed.
The rows associated with Neighborhood Owner Lots and Tenant Owned Lots have been color coded so that it is now easier to tell them apart. Rows that are not associated with Owner Lots or Tenant Lots will remain white. Owner Lot rows are now light tan. Tenant Lot rows are now light green.
Known Issues:
The new Escrow Page user interface is still in a beta phase. There was an inconsistency with the Escrow data in the beta client so we went ahead and released the new UI to production so that members would have up to date Escrow information that they could use to test with. If there are any discrepancies with the new escrow page design, Neighborhood Owners are encouraged to report these issues by filing a Help Central ticket under Real Estate > Neighborhoods. Please make sure to include the name of the Neighborhood Zone and a link to the Neighborhood Zone in your ticket.
We are still working to fix the Escrow Page Display bug. The Escrow bug issues have not been resolved. We will need an additional amount of time to resolve these issues. We have introduced the new Escrow Page user interface design in the meantime, with the hope that our Neighborhood owners will benefit from the new information provided.
The Hood owner is being reflected as a tenant. We will update the page once we resolve that.
New Customizable Vehicles
To add to the Custom Vehicles, we have added the Coupe and Muscle Cars. The base chassis is available in Shop Central now. You should see some member designed paint in the auctions soon!
Clickable Auction Images
The auctions pages have been updated so that you can click on any thumbnail image and it will display the auction page for that item.
Longer Seller Description for Auctions
We have expanded the "Seller's comments about this item" field to 1024 characters. Now you can really describe an item, without creatively squeezing it into 255 characters.
Share item
Sharing a great find or showing off your latest creation has just gotten easier! We have added a link to all auctions pages "Share it" which allows you to send a link of the auction to anyone via Theremail.
Inspect Outfit
We have added the ability to find out all about who designed what your friend is wearing, and where to buy it. There is a new option on your name tag 'Allow view outfit' which allows others to see the details of your current outfit for five minutes. The View Outfit page includes links so that you can purchase that item too. Once that is set, others see 'View outfit' on your nametag for the 5 minutes.
Disable Bidder Search
In response to member requests, we have removed the ability to search another avatar's bidding history. You will still be able to view your own bidding history.
Known issues - The Advanced Search page was not updated with the release. We are in the process up updating it now.
Rent last paid on Hood
We have extended the 'Rent last paid' field in the auctions to include neighborhoods.
Known issues: This has not yet been extended to fixed zones (Houses, FunZones, FrontierZone). We will investigate what it will take to extend this feature to other rental types.
Forcefield Toggle on nametag
Now it is even easier to change your forcefield setting! Your nametag menu now includes a toggle for turning on and off your forcefield.
Help to "No *ing" messages
We have added Help buttons to the pop up messages 'No Driving' 'No Paintguns'. The help pages explain why some areas do not allow the action, and provide a list of places where that action or activity is permitted.
Known Issues - The link on No Driving to Benda Beach returns an error. We are investigating and will resolve.
Interactivity
We have developed a framework which allows us to create new objects in world that you can interact with. Some examples were in the recent beta tests (lightable torch, configurable mannequin). We are not introducing any interactive products with today's release.
Terrain Edits brought to you by Betty_Bulldozer
With all of the rumbling and shaking along the Aurora fault line, new terrain has emerged from the ocean depths off the southwest coast of Aurora Island. Skippy sailed his schooner out to sea and discovered the new Aurora Island chain! Ten single Islands with varying flora and terrain will be added to the Aurora Neighborhood roll out.
Distance Measuring Device
In answer to member and staff requests, we have created a way to tell how far apart things are so that you can more easily abide by the Real Estate Placement Policies. When turned on, the measuring tool should bring up two semi-transparent red disks. One waist height on the avatar, and the other about a meter over its head. This is so that you can see the disks through bumpy terrain and use the measuring tool for all views.
How to use it:
* Go to Views on your menubar. The "Measuring Device" submenu opens up to two options:
** Turn On/Off -- toggles the measuring tool on and off.
** Radius -- is a submenu that offers three different options: 10 meters, 20 meters, and 50 meters, which is the radius of the circle around the avatar.
MySubmissions
We have completed our second round of modifications to the My Submissions page. We incorporated much of your feedback into this update.
Here is a list of changes included on the MySubmissions page.
* Font size/style has been converted to match the Auction tab view.
* Add more listings per page to 200.
* Change status names to be more meaningful.
* Add the catalog image for the submission.
* Review the submission and rejection messages.
* Find a better spot for the submission ID.
* Add the "Cancel" functionality.
* Add graphics for [-]/[+] so developers know there is more information available.
* Items that are in-world should appear with a status of "Avalible".
* The tabs should be "All", "Pending", "Terminated", "Approved", "Unlisted". (See table below for usage)
* The item menu should be based on the status.
* "Details" should show the submission fee, wholesale fee, product type.
* Buy/Rent/Try should open a confirmation window rather than going to the catalog page.
Known issues - The page is currently showing Python errors. We are pushing a fix now.
Locking Vehicles
The ability to lock your vehicles has been extended to Developer Buggies. (Buggy, TUV, Custom Cars) You should now be able to lock your developer buggies in your zone.
STAGE SPEAKERS STAY VISIBLE
In a crowded funzone (more than 20 avatars), the forum and speaker positions of the stage now confer a special status on their avatars, such that they remain full avatars (not blockheads) to everyone within reasonable distance. This allows you to continue hearing their speech and seeing their chat. This same priority boost is given to the audience member who is currently 'holding the mic' (for stages with that feature).
FUNZONE MEGAPHONE VOICE MORE RELIABLE
There was a bug which would break voice periodically in a funzone Megaphone (even though text chat would continue). In fact, you could break voice in megaphone as easily as using the zone details page to turn the megaphone off and then back on.
BACKGROUND VOICE
There is a new option (There/Customize/World/Background Voice). When it is ON, you will continue to hear voice even when the There client is not the foreground window. (When it is OFF you will hear up until the end of the current transmission, and after that you will not hear voice until you bring the client back to the front)
MISCELLANEOUS VOICE FIXES
Cleaned up some packet error handling in voice which may or may not make any noticeable difference. Probably not worth mentioning.
BLINKING ZONE/HOUSE FIXES
This release should complete the deployment of all known blinking zone issues, so please continue to report to Customer Service if you find a zone which is unable to fully appear before it winks out of existence.
PUSHDAY MORNING RACEKIT ISSUE
This issue is *not* resolved in this release, however additional logging has been added to help us get to the root of it.
DUDA BEACH INVISIBLE PAZ ISSUE
It turns out the large number of signs and music boxes in Duda Beach directly compete with PaZ visibility (drop a music box, see one less paz). We have issued a new visibility class unique to PaZes, but have not back updated PaZes to use the new class, so you will see no difference yet.
ZERO RADIUS PRESENCE BUG FIX
This is a fix for the effect where objects could disappear just as their 'center' left the screen. This was most commonly reported as 'blinking huts on Zona'
FOGLESS WEATHERS ADDED
Two minor weather additions "Powder Snow" and "Summer Showers" which are identical to regular snow and rain, only without the fog and sky darkening.
MISCELLANEOUS PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS
The There code base likes to save "state" a lot to remember "how things are" at any point in time. In our efforts to improve system performance, we've found that it (a) sometimes like to save the same thing over and over and over, even if they haven't changed, and (b) saves a LOT of data instead of just the little bit it needs to. Not only does all this extra saving make the system(s) busier, it can cause it take longer to recover when we have a hardware failure.
In this release we've made changes to reduce how often and how much data is changed, which should improve performance on the server side. You may not notice anything, but we expect to see at least a 15% reduction in the amount of data written. Since writing data takes time, and computer cycles, this is better. :-)
Webapps Login via FireFox
After many years of requests, we have taken another step toward compatability with other browsers. You can now login to webpages using a FireFox browser from www.There.com.
New Issues:
Cards - For undetermined reasons the cards in your hand will flip over to seem upside down. This does not affect the card play. A New Game will fix the card display.
Cards & PAZ - There is something strange going on. We don't know what the problem is, but we are investigating and will get it resolved as soon as we can.
Blinking Zones - We have discovered one zone (The Millenium Tree) which is blinking for new clients. We are investigating the cause and will resolve it as soon as possible.
This release brought to you by:
Transaction History - myIMV, Zelenka, Dalusha
Neighborhood Escrow Page - Zelenka, Dalusha, katkat, There_RealEstate
New Customizable Vehicles - TheChaz, Trilogy Studios
Clickable auction images* - Skippy
Longer Item Descriptions* - Skippy, katkat
Share item* - Skippy
Inspect outfit* - Skippy
Disable bidder search* - Skippy
Rent last paid on Hood* - Skippy
Forcefield Toggle on nametag* - TheChaz
Help to "no *ing* messages"* - Skippy, Alex
Interactivity - TheChaz
Terrain Edits - Betty_Bulldozer
Distance Measuring Device* - PixelVixen
MySubmissions - xbudex
Locking vehicles* - TheChaz, Samsyn
Stage speakers stay visible* - TheChaz, Samsyn
Funzone Megaphone more Reliable - Samsyn
Background Voice & other Voice Fixes - Samsyn
Zone Fixes - Samsyn, Helper_Hecate
Zero Radius Bug Fix - Samsyn
New Weather Patterns - Samsyn
Performance Enhancements - Samsyn, Skippy
FireFox Login - xbudex
All features were tested by - light67, mommm, Kirzten, and our wonderful beta testers.
*These features were championed by the There Pod (a cross functional team of staff including Community, Engineering, Marketing and Operations).
Accounts & Billing
Release Updates
