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Crossfire 0.92.0 Announcement

Version 0.92.0 does not have major changes that the new major number would suggest. I went to 0.92.0 just because I don't really like the last number going above 9.

This release also does not include Brian Thomas's new skill code - since I had already been making patches to post 0.91.9 before his skill code was ready, it was decided that I would make a stable release without skills, and then another release with skills. The next release with all the skill code should be out very shortly, but that will probably be more of a developers release.

I should also say that this does not mean the the crossfire code will be splitting into a skill/noskill version. All future work that I will do will be on the release with all that skill code.

So what does this release have? Mostly bug fixes. While packing it up, I noticed that there actually were not a lot of changes, but many of the bugfixes are things that will prevent core dumps (probably 3 or 4 of them are fixed.) Version 0.92.0 should be considered a very stable version for actually running a server with (I have had a server running this version for over a week, and it did generate about 2.7 megs of output data, so it was being used (and before you ask the address, it is behind a firewall, so it won't do you much good.))

That said, if you are running an older version, you really should update to this - I can't think of any reason not to. I really consider this a solid release, where as 0.91.8 and 0.91.9 really were not.

So on to the real release information:

There are three separate tar archives in the Crossfire 0.92.0 distribution:

sums (bsd) filename

  • 07383 13 crossfire-0.91.9-0.92.0.diff.gz
  • 09336 649 crossfire-0.92.0.arch.tar.gz
  • 37702 2499 crossfire-0.92.0.maps.tar.gz
  • 48430 1366 crossfire-0.92.0.tar.gz

crossfire-0.92.0.tar.gz contains the actual program code. See the CHANGES file in this archive for everything that has changed. It also contains pre-made archetypes and image files, so that the crossfire-0.92.0.arch.tar.gz file is not needed.

crossfire-0.92.0.arch.tar.gz contains the unpacked archetype (arch) directory. This file is not needed if you just want to compile the games and play. The contents of this archive is used to create the archetypes, bmaps, font, and X PixMap (XPM) files. You only need it if you want to add new archetypes, mess around with the existing ones, or recreate some files. There are few changes (a couple new food types added, and visibility added to some archetypes.) While not all that major, the game will probably core dump without the food archetypes, and the visibilty values are needed so that some things work properly (like pentagrams and some entrances and exits.)

crossfire-0.91.9-0.92.0.diff.gz: This is a source code diff file. For some reason I am not sure of, a lot of the rcs headers showed up differently this time around - not a big deal, but does make this just a little bit larger. Files that can be regenerated automatically are not included - this makes the diff file much smaller, but it means you will need to get the crossfire-0.92.0.arch.tar.gz to recreate the files (like the archetypes, faces, images, and spoiler). As mentioned above, there are some changes to the archetypes are are important. This patch file can be nice in that it makes it very clear on the exact changes made.

crossfire-0.92.0.maps.tar.gz: Contains all the maps. If you have an older version, you probably don't need to update - I believe the only thing that changed was a few typos and one altar that is not related in any way to any quests (just provide access to a shop.)

FOR FIRST TIME USERS: You only need 2 files out of all of the above, the crossfire-0.92.0.tar.gz and the crossfire-0.92.0.maps.tar.gz files - you can ignore the other files.

 

Crossfire is avaible on the following ftp sites

Primary:

  • ftp.i.net:/pub/crossfire2 (192.243.32.18)
  • ftp.ifi.uio.no:/pub/crossfire (129.240.82.2)

Secondary:

  • yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au:/pub/crossfire (130.194.9.1)
  • ftp.cs.city.ac.uk:/pub/games/crossfire/
  • ftp.sunet.se:/pub/unix/games/crossfire (130.238.127.3)
  • ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp:/pub/games/crossfire

I uploaded this version to just ftp.i.net - it should be on the other ftp sites in a short time.

Note: The ftp.i.net site has two crossfire directories - /pub/crossfire and /pub/crossfire2 The new source is in the /pub/crossfire2 directory.

Mark Wedel