Cryosphere

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Older News

2003-01-06

Crystal 0.2!

Version 0.2 of our unix mud client, Crystal, is available. The main feature this offers is simple support for scripting.

2002-12-05

Version 2.0.11

Two new missions - Tea by Mariusz, and Prison by Orange, along with a new courier minimission.

Two new games - Connect 4 by Plett and Othello by Serriadh.

We've moved the Academy to be on the station, it's now possible to get to the main room where everyone hangs out by just two commands (south, up).

2002-11-24

Version 2.0.10

Version 2.0.10 has arrived with support for two mudding protocols. Firstly, MCCP, a way of compressing the output from the mud so it takes less bandwith, and secondly MXP, which we use to provide hyperlinks and popup menus in a few places. Both will only work with some clients (MCCP : most modern mud clients, MXP: zmud and mushclient only), but cause no problems for other ones.

2002-10-10

Uptime

We are back up again. Apologies for the downtime.

2002-10-01

Version 2.0.9

Cryotel version 0.1.4

A new version of cryotel (now known as crystal), our Unix mud client, is out.

2002-08-28

New web page design

A fairly major behind-the-scenes facelift. CSS now used everywhere. Links to the encyclopedia will have broken. The info/help/policy file viewer's been rewritten from scratch.

2002-08-18

Version 2.0.8

2002-08-05

Version 2.0.7

2002-07-28

Version 2.0.6

2002-07-21

Version 2.0.5

2002-07-15

Version 2.0.4

2002-07-08

Version 2.0.3.1

Pontoon!

2002-07-05

Version 2.0.3

2002-06-20

Version 2.0.2

2002-06-15

Version 2.0.1

2002-06-07

Version 2.0

Hot on the heels of version 1.5 comes version 2.0! We really wanted to move to this straight away, but couldn't resist letting you have some of the features earlier.

The combat engine has undergone a total revamp. This project has been long in the making, but we've finally done it.

The Ocean mission by Orange has been added. This mission, set on Livingstone, is the replacement for the old Livingstone quest.

There's a 'whoname' command now. And a 'sayto', although why you'd want that I'm not quite sure.

Shops won't just buy anything back. A clothing shop will only buy clothes, a bar won't buy anything. However, anything you do sell to a shop that doesn't usually stock, it will be added to the stock list. You might find it tricky finding people to buy Contraband items, though.

There's a rumour that the Cryosphere is just a game. You can prove that right by trying 'endprogram' outside of a simulator, courtesy of Gaz and Twiglet.

A number of core commands have been given a fresh lick of paint, including look, inventory, size, value and map.

Magic mushrooms may make you trip. (If you just take random ones from the Livingstone forest you may die, but there is of course a way round this). You can now interact with fluffinexol-inspired bunnies. Thanks to Sniper for the zone-work on this.

Most commands that take 'all fish' also take 'all but fish', too. 'take all but fish' would pick up everything here apart from any fish.

On some mud clients (putty, crt, xterm, and screen), the Cryosphere will set the title of the window to your current location. And on some (putty, xterm, crt, linux console, java), it will use line drawing characters for making tables. To turn these off do 'lines off'.

Skateboards!

The mud supports various different colour schemes. Just type 'colour' to get a list of them.

And that's just the start of it - many bugs have been fixed, many small changes have been made, many help files have been updated.

2002-03-30

Version 1.5!

Welcome to version 1.5 of the Cryosphere. This new improved version fixes many bugs and adds lots of new minor features, some of which are listed below.

New missions include Kazimierz by Yoru and Eviction by Orange, and two new minimissions. The old baddiel mission has been substantially renovated into the new Rescue mission by Gaz and Twiglet.

You can now alias commands. For example, alias banana users will allow you to view the output of the users command by typing banana. Some actions, such as cower, can be used with an object as its target. Actions can now be used over the communication lines. e.g. gossip #cheer will show the cheer action to everyone that has gossip enabled.

Use of the map command has been altered slightly. Try using it on the Cryosphere itself!

Mobiles now leave corpses when slain. Don't indulge yourself on too much alcohol, it could be harmful to your health.

In outdoor planetary locations, there are now day and night periods. Use of away has changed slightly - you can just change away message by using it again, instead of coming back to your keyboard first. Back issues of the Cryosphere Daily Record can now be purchased from the newsagent at a reduced price. There should be a new edition any day now!

Of course, there are lots more behind-the-scenes systems that have been re-written and fixed, and lots of general tidying up.

Hope you enjoy the new version!

2002-01-10

We're back! After some recent downtime, the Cryosphere is pleased to announce its return.

2001-09-24

In the next few days Cryosphere's IP address will change. To this end, DNS may take a while to get updated. If you find you cannot connect, try to connect to 152.78.189.236 instead. Port number remains as 6666.

2001-08-15

Congratulations to Sniper on his promotion to Commodore.

2001-07-20

Congratulations to Yoru and Twiglet on their promotions to Captain.

2001-07-17

We have made some changes to our DNS servers. This shouldn't affect you at all, but if you find that you can't get to cryosphere.org over the next few days then try mud.cryosphere.co.uk or fluffy.ecs.soton.ac.uk instead.

2001-06-29

Version 1.4.4 has landed. Features include - recursive equipment saving and quarters (so now backpacks are available and wardrobes work) vehicles - hoverbikes are available from the weapons store on Livingstone you can type "drop all fluffinexol" to drop all fluffinexol. This works with drop, throw, get, and eat many many other things

2001-06-04

Welcome to version 1.4.3. Mostly minor changes - drinking alcohol causes people to be drunk. When you reconnect after being linkdead you will be shown what you missed... Updates to several missions and many bugfixes.

2001-05-21

Version 1.4.2 has arrived. The handling of wordwrapping has been greatly improved, "look" is now more concise about who is in the room when there is more than one person. "Buy" now works on the object name.

2001-05-20

We're back, and with a bigger disk!

The web server is not quite fully set up yet, so some features (such as the info files gateway, and the Who's on list) are not operational.

2001-04-29

Welcome to version 1.4.1. We have implemented a Justice System. It is now possible to attack mobiles in previously peaceful zones. Of course, the police may have an opinion about this. This applies to the Cryosphere, most of Livingstone, the more civilised parts of Skinner, and New Lyon.

The major new Mercury mission by Sniper has been installed. We've also added Recover mission by Orange.

A new edition of the Monthly Record is out. Make sure you read this if you are planning to do any missions - as usual you can get it from the Newsagents on Level 2.

Other random things include : we now have a "Who's on?" list on the website, and missions/mdone is now alphabetically sorted.

2001-04-28

Congratulations to Tinuviel on her promotion to Captain.

2001-04-21

We upgraded to version 1.4. This features player quarters, better handling of cloned items, chairs you can sit on, a new zone southwest of Livingstone (follow the road). We have also had major updates to the help - every command is now documented!

2001-04-19

There is a new issue of the Cryosphere Monthly (formerly Daily) news out. You can get it from the newsagents on level2, a snip at 2 credits.

2001-04-02

Version 1.3 swapped in featuring the Hospital mission, improvements to Academy, tweaks to most missions and the mission system in general.

2001-03-27

Civilians are implemented! You may 'RESIGN'. See help on that for more info.

2001-03-26

We have a new website at

2001-03-18

We now have a "uin" command for setting your ICQ number. This will appear in "finger" information.

2001-01-25

To celebrate our second birthday, as promised, Cake is available for free, from Muon's. [we declared version 1.0 two years ago today].

2001-02-25

Welcome to version 1.2! This is the Cryosphere's biggest ever upgrade, the culmination of three months hard work. A special thanks must go to those who helped test this version, without their help, this upgrade would not have been possible.

First up, we have five new missions, Ionstorm, Academy, HolyGrail, Grain, and Invincible.

In addition, Paralithium, and Skinner have recieved major touchups, and some minor changes have occured in other missions.

The Academy is now operational. With four training missions tutoring new players in the art of mudding, followed by the Academy graduation mission, the Academy.

Holodecks have been introduced. This allows many people to train in the same mission, whether at the Academy or elsewhere, at the same time without interfering with each other.

There is a new station. The station has been thrown away and rebuilt from scratch, producing a coherent and immersive atmosphere. The new station offers new facilites, including holodecks, and an insurance office (see 'INFO INSURANCE')

There is a new ships system. The previous routines for ships have been consolidated to produce a plan-based ship system. Check out the docks for details. We think it rocks.

Mobiles can talk back. Although this is in its early stages, some mobiles can give you missions hints, supply critical information, or obey commands.

A wilderness has been added on the planet of Livingstone. This surrounds the town. Not much is going on there yet, but one mission already makes use of it and we expect more use in the future.

When in the wilderness, the 'MAP' command will give you a map of the local area.

Cleaning robots will exist on the station, and some other places. They will take anything left lying around that isn't bolted down, so be careful.

Major changes to the missions system. There is now a missions board at Livingstone too. You can and should accept static missions in order to do them. As with the minimissions, you can use the mission object itself as a token to prove your identity.

Some missions have been restricted to certain levels. Harder missions will not be shown on the missions boards for lower level players. The critical levels are Petty Officer 3, and Warrant Officer. Once you reach Warrant Officer, all missions will be available.

Two new minimissions have been added - one to deliver supplies from Skinner to the Cryosphere, the other to repair holodecks. Also, the fixing ships mission has been made more varied. (and now Ambassadors can be escorted the other way).

Finally, Warrant Officer Smith will now announce when a mission has been reset.

An alien language has been devised, see 'INFO LAMIDAV' for a basic phrasebook.

We finally have COMMSTATS. Thanks to whoever thought this idea up in the first place.

Many other changes have been made.

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