W:A v3.6.30.0 Released

[Deadcode]

Finally the long wait is over! This W:A update has been more than two years in the making. Enjoy.

Download Page (http://wa.team17.com/main.html?page=supp&area=upda&file=15)

MD5sums:
bf9821d5482ffa39a9776b1e1e255c66 *WA_update-3.6.30.0_Beta_Installer.exe

Fixes
[CS, DC] Hardware and Operating System compatibility
[CS] Windows 98/ME compatibility, which was accidentally broken in v3.6.29.0, has been restored.
[CS] Minimisation support in the front end in Windows Vista was incomplete (upon restoring, it was not possible to interact with UI elements using the mouse).
[CS] W:A now uses a new method of restoring the palette, which has been found to be more effective on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Should the display palette become corrupted, the user can try to restore it manually in-game by pressing Shift+Pause.
[CS] A new compatibility setting for Wine has been added, Force Wine virtual desktop (ForceWineVirtualDesktop_On.reg). When this setting is enabled, W:A will automatically relaunch itself in a virtual desktop, by running explorer "/desktop=640x480,Worms Armageddon" [WA.exe's full command-line] /novirtualdesktop. (The /novirtualdesktop switch is used to temporarily override the effect of the setting, thus preventing W:A from entering into an endless loop.)
[CS] A new compatibility setting for Wine has been added, Use desktop window (FrontendUseDesktopWindow_Enable.reg). Enabling this setting causes W:A to use the desktop window for the DirectDraw SetCooperativeLevel call, which fixes front-end display problems when running under Wine.
[CS] When W:A v3.6.30.0 or later is run under Wine for the first time, it will offer to enable Wine-specific compatibility settings (ForceWineVirtualDesktop, LandInVram_Disable, SlowFrontendWorkaround_Off and FrontendUseDesktopWindow_Enable).
[CS] W:A's associations are now registered automatically by the Beta Update installer. This means it is no longer necessary to run W:A at least once as Administrator after installing a new Beta Update.
[DC] A new compatibility setting has been added, Enable double buffering (enabled by default). Disabling this setting resolves in-game flickering problems under VMware.
[DC] When W:A v3.6.30.0 or later is run under VMware for the first time, it will offer to enable VMware-specific compatibility settings (InGameDoubleBuffering_Disable, SlowFrontendWorkaround_Off and FrontendUseVRAM_Disable).
[DC] In VMware, tab stops in the front end were not being activated by default.
[CS] When W:A v3.6.30.0 or later is run under VirtualBox for the first time, it will offer to enable VirtualBox-specific compatibility settings (SlowFrontendWorkaround_Off and FrontendUseVRAM_Enable).
[DC] Slow front end workaround
[DC] There are some video cards/drivers under which SlowFrontendWorkaround_On.reg does not fix W:A's "slow front end" lag. It has been found that "SlowFrontendWorkaround_AntiFlicker" fixed the problem in at least one of these cases (with a GeForce 8800GTS 512MB). To reflect the wider use of this version of the slow front end workaround, it has been renamed. It is now enabled by importing SlowFrontendWorkaround_Alternative.reg (from the Tweaks folder) into the system registry, or by selecting the Alternative setting on the Advanced Options screen. Also, SlowFrontendWorkaround_On is now the default mode that W:A will assume if none of the SlowFrontendWorkaround tweaks have been imported into the registry. Note that the Alternative mode will most likely use the maximum CPU of one system core, whereas On and Off modes have lower CPU usage.
[DC] Previously, enabling SlowFrontendWorkaround would break the intro fade (assuming /nointro was not used). Now, it is temporarily disabled to make the fade work properly.
[DC] An effect which was previously toggled by the SlowFrontendWorkaround setting is now available as a separate option: FrontendUseVRAM_Disable.reg. This prevents W:A from using video memory in the front end, which may improve compatibility on certain systems.
[CS, DC] Timer workaround
[CS] On some system configurations, the high-resolution timer would occasionally skip backwards by a minuscule amount, which caused W:A to enter a nearly-infinite loop (if the TimerWorkaround_On.reg tweak wasn't being used). W:A now checks for this condition and prevents a lock-up from happening.
[DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.28.0: On some systems with multiple CPU cores, the weapon panel would not open and close properly. When the mouse was moved, the panel would go "wandering" randomly, eventually going off the side of the screen, sometimes coming back later. This was a very rare but consistently reproducible bug on some systems. If you experienced this bug, it is still recommended that you enable the timer workaround (either using the Advanced Options dialog, or by importing TimerWorkaround_On.reg, from the Tweaks folder, into your system registry) because the same timer issue that caused the dancing weapon panel bug can also cause screen lag (irregular, jumpy passage of time within the game).
[CS] Keyboard hotkeys & character tables
[CS] Entering international characters not present in W:A's character table sometimes incorrectly resulted in Cyrillic characters.
[CS] It was not possible to enter some international characters in the front end due to W:A interpreting some Ctrl+Alt+... keystrokes as Ctrl+... keyboard shortcuts.
[CS] The Utility key is now determined based on the keyboard OEM scan code, which should not change across typical system configurations. The previous method, introduced in v3.6.28.0, used the key that generates the ` character on the U.S. English keyboard layout, but required this layout to be installed on the user's PC.
[DC, CS] Mouse input
[CS] When moving the mouse cursor directly from one hyperlink to another, the highlighted hyperlink was not updated.
[DC] A bug in v3.6.29.0 caused the mouse cursor to jump (319,399) pixels down-right at the beginning of every game.
[DC] Another bug introduced in v3.6.29.0 also caused the mouse cursor to jump. This happened if the chat box was opened during an offline game session (a feature introduced in v3.6.29.0) while a Worm was being manually placed or aiming a Teleport/Girder/homing weapon. Any mouse motion occurring while the chat box was open would be stored up, and when the chat was closed, the mouse cursor would jump.
[DC] A bug introduced in v3.6.28.0 caused to camera to be horizontally locked when emulating v3.0 in a cavern terrain.
[DC] While holding the middle mouse button to speed up cursor movement in-game, right-clicking to open the weapon panel would cause the status of the middle button to be forgotten.
[CS, DC] Sound effects
[CS] The front end ambient sound loop was not being played when the game was started with the wa:// or /host command-line parameters.
[DC] Due to a bug introduced in v3.6.29.0, it was possible for in-game looped sound effects (such as the Dynamite fuse and the Mole Bomb's digging) to be stopped prematurely when other sounds were played. This was more likely to happen on some systems than others, depending on how quickly the DirectSound backend detected the finishing of a sound being played (the more lag, the less likely the bug).
[CS] The stereo panning effect was not applied to sounds when the camera was moved while the game was in single-step mode.
[CS] On systems with a configured nation not explicitly recognized by W:A, a flag, fanfare and soundbank was not being selected for intrinsic teams and default values.
[CS] Fanfares for nations not explicitly recognized by W:A will now default to "Simple", in conformance with nations explicitly recognized by W:A but not having an appropriate nation fanfare.
[CS] The "Russian" soundbank is no longer selected by default for Croatia.
[DC] Subfolder support for schemes and maps now works more cleanly
[DC] Clicking subfolders no longer changes the name in the edit box.
[DC] When entering a folder with the keyboard (Enter key), the first file is now selected by default.
[DC] Pressing Enter or clicking on a file directly after it has already been loaded will now reload the file if its timestamp or size has changed; otherwise it will close the drop-down list box as before.
[DC] Subfolders with names beginning in ".." are no longer hidden.
[DC, CS] Schemes
[DC] Loaded schemes no longer have the ".wsc" extension added to them in the combo edit box.
[CS] After deleting a scheme in the offline multiplayer screen, the text in the scheme selection drop-down wasn't being updated despite the fact that the game loaded the Intermediate scheme.
[DC] When saving a scheme in a subfolder, the overwrite confirmation dialog would incorrectly be displayed if a scheme with the same filename existed in the main Schemes folder. No confirmation dialog would appear when overwriting a scheme in a subfolder.
[DC] When attempting to delete a scheme that didn't exist, the delete confirmation dialog showed up anyway, implying that the file existed.
[DC] In the Options Menu, the scheme edit box now scrolls for long scheme filenames. It also has more room to show the scheme name below the edit box.
[DC] Loading a scheme with "random worm order" correctly updated the required version, so that players with a version not supporting that feature would be crosshatched in red in the host's player list. However, if the host toggled this feature directly using the Worm Select button, the required version was not updated. This meant that a game could be started that was supposed to have random worm order but didn't, or alternatively that a player could be falsely flagged as being unable to play, preventing the game from being started.
[DC] Loading an intrinsic scheme (such as Intermediate) did not update the required version. This meant that if the scheme beforehand was unsupported by any players present, their names would continue to be crosshatched in red even though intrinsic schemes are supported by all versions of W:A going back to v3.0.

[Deadcode]

[CS] WormNET
[CS] The WormNET IRC client has been made more conformant to the IRC standard.
[CS] W:A would sometimes fail to reply to IRC PING messages with a PONG, and would time out should there be no outgoing traffic for several minutes.
[CS] When getting kicked or banned from WormNET, W:A will now display an appropriate message (including the moderator-specified reason), instead of a generic disconnection message.
[CS] Sometimes lines containing colour codes weren't being wrapped correctly in WormNET chat.
The fix for this issue caused some changes in the way HTML was displayed. The file ServerList.htm has been updated to display correctly on all W:A versions.
[CS] WormNET private message formatting codes are now parsed and displayed for sent messages.
[CS] In the WormNET, host/join and LAN lobbies, wrapped lines of chat could become partially obscured when the scroll bar was created.
[CS] The Snooper detection, introduced in v3.6.29.0, now ignores spaces in the "version" field.
[CS] Clients not having a valid IRC "real name" field will no longer be displayed with an UK flag. The "UK" two-letter country code, popularised by 3rd-party applications, is still supported but is deprecated (the correct ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code is "GB").
[CS] Received IRC private actions are now displayed correctly (these can only be sent using a snooper or IRC client at the moment).
[CS] W:A no longer automatically replies to any special messages (such as CTCPs) sent to WormNET channels.
[CS] A scrollbar was sometimes incorrectly placed on the WormNET channel list screen.
[DC, CS] Host / join
[CS] When hosting, W:A will no longer accept forged chat messages from clients in the host/join screen. It will also forward private messages only to the recipient, thus making host/join whisper spying by clients no longer possible.
[CS, DC] When hosting non-WormNET games, W:A will now check the game ID. This will prevent games hosted via Direct IP to be accidentally joined by players trying to join a stale WormNET game.
[CS, DC] The resolution of network timers in the connection dialog and match finished screen has been increased. This considerably improves the speed of joining games.
[DC] If the connection process was cancelled at the wrong moment, you would be left with an hourglass cursor.
[DC] When exiting a game that was hosted or joined via "Direct TCP/IP" in the Network Choice screen, you will now be returned to that screen instead of the LAN Lobby.
[CS] W:A would exit silently if it failed to open certain files from the game CD. Now it will display a message and create an error log.
[DC] When a player left, it would correctly clear all the other players' light bulbs on the clients' sides; however, on the host's side the light bulbs would remain lit. In the online next round screen, the light bulbs would at least remain synchronised in this situation, but the host's light bulb would stay lit on all sides after a player left (whereas the clients' light bulbs would be cleared).
[DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.19.7: When the host changed maps, each client's light bulb would only be cleared on their own end and on the host's end.
[DC] In v3.6.29.0, pressing Tab in the host/join screen would switch from the edit box to the scheme combo box; but once focused on the scheme box, Tab would no longer work.
[DC] Kicking
[DC] When being kicked by a host using W:A v3.5 or later, a client would usually not process the kick message and would state "The connection to the network has been lost" instead of "The host has removed you from the game." This was a client-side bug and has now been fixed.
[DC] When kicking a player, the host did not hear a sound effect. The same went for the player being kicked. Both will now hear the same sound effect that joined players hear when a player leaves, disconnects or is kicked.
[DC] The "INVALID MAP FILE" and "Please wait while the level file loads" notices did not restore after minimising.
[DC] If you're a client, minimised while the host clicks "Play Again" or "New Match", you will no longer crash; instead, the game will flash its taskbar button and produce a standard beep. Likewise, the same will now happen if the host starts the game while you're minimised (which is normally not possible).
[CS] If you were disconnected from a network game (due to a network failure or the host quitting), in-game options such as volume and detail level changed during that game weren't saved.
[DC] If a host using v3.6.29.0 loaded a scheme that was externally edited to have custom Jet Pack fuel, and the Jet Pack power byte was set to 128 or higher (129 stars or higher; 123 fuel units or higher), and player(s) using an older version were present, the game would silently emulate the old version, with default Jet Pack fuel (30 units), instead of printing the proper error message and highlighting the older-version player(s) in red.
[DC] The "Twang1" sound, played when a player disconnects, was used only in the initial host/join screen, not in the next round or match finished screens.
[DC] Desynchronisation issues
[DC] On some systems, a network game started with an intrinsic map (Cars, Polar, etc.) would desynchronise on the client side when the game was started. The bug was always latent in W:A, but first manifested in v3.6.28.0. There was a workaround in v3.6.29.0 regarding this bug, but it did not fix the desynchronisation.
[DC] If a multi-round network game was played on an intrinsic map, and the host did not manually change the map before starting Round 2, the game would desynchronise. The same would happen if a new match was started after one that had been played on an intrinsic map, and the host did not manually change the map before starting the first round of the new match.
[DC] Editing certain scheme options in an external scheme editor (or hex-editing the .WSC file directly) could cause problems. In particular, the Sudden Death Water Rise Rate, Mine Fuse, and Fall Damage settings could be edited to normally out-of-range values. However, once the scheme was loaded in W:A, going into the Options Editor would automatically reset the values if they were out of the normal range. If a host went into the Options Editor, the values would be reset, but the Cancel button would be operational though using this button would be unexpected when no manual change had been made, and pressing Exit would commit the automatic changes and undo the externally edited options. What was worse was the if a client went into the Options Editor to view the settings, they would be reset on the client's end. This would result in a desynchronisation if a game was started with this scheme.
Sudden Death Water Rise Rate was reset to Medium (2) if it was anything other than Off (0), Slow (1), Medium (2), or Fast (3). Nonstandard values of this setting change the water rise rate nonlinearly.
Mine Fuse was reset to 3 seconds if it was not 0-3 seconds or Random. Nonstandard values of this setting can go from 5-127 seconds.
Fall Damage was reset to Off (0) if it was not On (1). Nonstandard values of this setting change the strength of the fall damage nonlinearly.
Some other scheme settings were reset to default values if they were out-of-range, but this was not important because the out-of-range values were not special and thus were not commonly used.
[DC, CS] In-game network play
[DC] A disconnection of a spectator (a "player" with no team) was not noted in the chat box, either during the game or in replay (or exported log).
[CS, DC] W:A would often display a 10-second countdown with the text "Waiting for players" at the end of a network game, waiting for a confirmation network packet that was never sent.
[CS] Previous versions of W:A silently discarded front end network packets while in-game. This could cause chat lines to be lost. W:A now queues front end network packets while in-game and processes them when W:A re-enters the front end.
[DC] Games with three or more players
[DC] A bug in v3.6.29.0 caused all players to desynchronise when one player quit or disconnected, if the disconnection was detected by the host between turns.
[DC] Another bug nearly always caused all players to desynchronise when one player quit or disconnected on their first turn. This bug can probably also occur later in the game, but that aspect of it is poorly understood and hard to reproduce (though the fix would apply in that case as well). Note that despite the similarity to the other desynchronisation bug fixed in this Beta Update, this bug dates back to Worms2.
[DC] When a client disconnected, the host would see the reason for disconnection but other clients would only see a generic disconnection message. The more detailed disconnection reason (timeout, network drop, desynchronisation) was being recorded, but not displayed.
[DC] The disconnection of spectators was not recorded at all by the host.
[CS] In network games, the volume slider in the Escape menu wouldn't slide if it was the local player's turn and the in-game mouse pointer was active (during initial worm placement or if a point-and-click weapon was selected).
[DC] The grey progress indicators displayed next to player names during loading will now update more smoothly and responsively.
[DC] More validation is now done on data received over the network.
[DC] If, within the same instance of WA.exe, first a game logic version earlier than 3.5 Beta 3pre13 (most likely 3.0 or 3.5 Beta 2) was emulated (i.e. legacy buggy Bungeeing Worm sprite), and then a version of 3.5 Beta 3pre13 or later was emulated (i.e. with the Bungeeing Worm sprite fix) or vice versa, the latter first and then the former and then a weapon was used while the Bungee was attached, it could cause a desynchronisation.

[Deadcode]

[DC, CS] Recorded games / replays
[DC] The passage of game time between turns and after the end of the game is now recorded, like it was before v3.6.19.15. This means that chat messages communicated between turns or after the end of a game will no longer pile up into one frame (unless they were communicated during a period of network lag).
[DC] When opening a recorded game that points to an intrinsic map, W:A now verifies that the intrinsic map exists. Previously, if it did not exist, the map from the last game would be used and playback would desynchronise.
[CS] After a fast-forward while playing back a recorded game (either when using the "Playback at" command, or when seeking to a marked position), the chat panel was not updated. If it is open, the chat panel is now also updated during the fast-forward if the negligible overhead is undesirable, it can be avoided by closing the chat panel.
[DC] The screen capture function had a memory leak. This was most evident when using the Export Video feature, but happened when taking a screenshot as well. Approximately 278 kilobytes were leaked every time a frame was captured. Capturing a very large number of frames (on the order of thousands or more, depending on free RAM) would eventually cause W:A to crash.
[DC] Export Log will now print "Game Ends - Alt+F4 pressed" if this is likely to have been the method of quitting, whereas before it would say "Game Ends - End of file" in this case.
[DC] More data validation is now done when playing back recorded game files.
[DC] Ever since the identity of the local player was added to the replay file format in v3.6.19.17, the game has tried to detect the local player when playing back older replay files. However, there was a minor bug in the message given when there was more than one spectator and all that could be deduced was that one of them was local.
[DC] The v3.6.22.0 threshold drowning worm emulation bug (see v3.6.26.4 fixes) is now detected during playback (and Export Log) in most situations. This prevents a Checksum Mismatch error from being printed in situations where the checksum was actually locally correct.
[DC] Messages, strings, and fonts
[DC] The Blow Torch weapon was named "BlowTorch" in game, breaking consistency with the front end and with Worms2, where it is named "Blow Torch".
[DC] Some "Morse Code" messages in Missions were being truncated when displayed in game, in particular some of the messages in the Spanish translation.
[DC] The Spanish translation for "cyan" was "azul-verdoso", which has now been replaced with "cian".
[DC] In the Missions screen, one of the mission names was long enough in the Spanish translation to be wrapped into two lines and cropped. The on-screen space for the mission name has been enlarged to rectify this.
[DC] The Spanish punctuation marks ¿¡ were present in the front end's font set but were not available in-game.
[DC] Three Spanish messages and one Portuguese message had exclamation mark related errors.
[DC] In the front end, the three largest fonts no longer crop the bottom pixel row of the lowest-reaching character glyphs.
[CS, DC] Translations
[DC] In Spanish, Crate Spy has been renamed from "Caja espía" to "Espía de cajas" (correction by "OutofOrder").
[CS] An incorrect character was fixed in the Spanish translation of the Basic Training #8 description text.
[DC] An incorrect character was fixed in the Russian translation of a 2-worm kill comment.
[DC] Some Morse code tips in Spanish were missing for Mission 9: "Water Surprise", Mission 14: "Super Sheep to the rescue!", and Mission 20: "Rumble in the Farmyard", with translations provided by "OutofOrder".
[CS] Apostrophes in Italian in-game messages were being incorrectly displayed.
[CS] The Italian translation in the in-game quit confirmation dialog incorrectly displayed "SÃ" instead of "SÌ".
[CS] The Russian translation was updated with corrections from "Shtirlitz".
[CS, DC] Free RAM & disk space
[CS] W:A will now display warnings on start-up when the current directory is not writable, or if there is little free disk space on the current drive.
[DC] Some minor memory leaks were fixed.
[DC, CS] Miscellaneous
[CS] Some versions of W:A installers would not create the User\Teams directory, which caused W:A to fail to save the team file. W:A will now create this subdirectory if it doesn't exist.
[CS] W:A would sometimes lock up after creating a console window, which is used to display the progress of operations such as exporting a log.
[CS, DC] The team health bars were sometimes incorrectly sorted for minute differences in total team health points.
[DC] Bug introduced in v3.6.23.0: Precise fuse timers, a playback feature added in v3.6.20.1, could not be turned off by cycling through name tags with the Delete key, if Invincibility was enabled in the scheme.
[DC] In v3.6.19.7, the ability was added to cycle both forward and backwards through randomly generated terrains by clicking and Shift+clicking the maps' thumbnails, respectively. However, the addition of this feature introduced some bugs. It was possible to get trapped in a loop, where only low-detail terrains would be generated, or (rarely) terrains within only one of the templates (e.g., double-cavern, single island, etc.) would be generated. The only way to get out of the loop was to leave that dialog screen and come back to it. In v3.6.20.1, this problem was addressed by forcing only maximum-detail terrains to be generated. It was still possible to get trapped in a template loop.
[DC] The forward and reverse sequence through randomly generated maps was different every time you entered a dialog screen in v3.6.19.7 to v3.6.29.0. Now, the map before and after a given map in the Click / Shift+Click sequence will always be the same.
[DC] If a map had been loaded through a means other than local clicking (e.g., loaded by a remote host in an online game, or loaded within the Map Editor and then shown as a thumbnail) then the first Click or Shift+Click would leave that map behind, without returning to it. This is now fixed.
[DC] Access has been restored to the full range of detail levels available in v3.0 to v3.5 Beta. You will no longer be limited to maps of only maximum detail, as you were starting in v3.6.20.1.
[DC] It is no longer possible to get trapped in a template loop when clicking / Shift+clicking the large map thumbnail.
[DC] There are now 2,147,483,648 available maps in the large thumbnail's cycle, and 2,147,483,648 maps for each template within the Map Editor (i.e., 17,179,869,184 maps). If you were to click 2,147,483,648 times in a row, you'd return to the same map from which you started.
[DC] In the Network Choice screen, the worms' eyes and eyebrows in the LAN and WormNET buttons were transparent.
[DC] In the Team Editor screen, double-clicking the team name's question mark button was supposed to cause all worm names to be randomly generated at once. However, this feature was broken in v3.6.19.7. It has been restored to working order.
[DC] When rapidly clicking the "draw holes" or "draw tunnels" buttons in the Map Editor, the same random seed would be used multiple times in a row, changing at most only once per second.
[DC] Taskbar System Menu
[DC] It is now possible to use the System Menu when minimised from the front end. This menu is opened by right-clicking W:A's Taskbar button. This allows you to Close the game without having the restore it first (in most game modes).
[DC] When W:A was minimised during a replay playback session using Alt+Tab or Alt+Esc or some other indirect trigger, right-clicking W:A's Taskbar button crashed the game.
[DC] The mouse cursor is no longer hidden in the System Menu.

[Deadcode]

[CS, DC] Crashes
[CS] Pressing Escape in some front end screens (Mission, Training and Deathmatch) caused abnormal minimization, often followed by a crash.
[CS] W:A would crash when it tried to display the large map size warning while being minimised.
[CS] W:A would crash when the offline multiplayer screen was opened if the previously-loaded map (stored in current.thm) was a .BIT map and was corrupted.
[CS] W:A would crash when it tried to display a message box while being minimised. W:A will now flash its taskbar button and produce a standard beep when this happens, and will display the message box once it's restored.
[DC] A bug in v3.6.29.0 caused W:A to crash in some circumstances if an instant replay was skipped by pressing Space.
[DC] A bug in v3.6.29.0 caused W:A to crash upon an instant replay, if one or more crates were present and an earlier version was being emulated such as v3.6.28.0[teststuff5], since v3.6.29.0 did not have its own version of TestStuff.
[DC] In v3.6.29.0, when emulating v3.0, attempting to use worm selection in a team that started with just 1 worm would crash the game.
[CS] When W:A is running on some system configurations and a bitmap fails to allocate to video RAM, it will now allocate to system RAM instead of crashing.
[CS] Minor/obscure changes have been made that may avoid bitmap-related crashes in the front end.
[DC] It was possible for W:A to crash when the "Please wait... working..." box popped up, when a game was started. This was exceedingly rare, but confirmed to happen at least sometimes under Windows 7.
[CS] W:A would crash when attempting to open the Team Editor if there was a 4-bit BMP image in the User\Flags or User\Graves folder. Now it is capable of loading 4-bit BMPs.
[CS] W:A would crash if it failed to load a sound sample from the FESfx subdirectory. It will now display an error message.
[CS] W:A would crash if it tried to display a message after it had exited the full-screen graphics mode, for example if an error occurred upon saving the team file. It will now display the message using a standard Windows message box.
[DC] W:A would crash if the user minimised during the front end's intro sequence.
[DC, CS] Fixes affecting game logic
[CS, DC] Fatal and potentially fatal bugs
[CS] A bug in v3.6.29.0 caused network desynchronisations and checksum errors when the Laser Sight was used. Due to its random nature, this bug cannot be emulated.
[DC] In a game with CPU team(s), in which an external scheme editor was used to assign "zero power" to a Mine, Dynamite, Priceless Ming Vase, Air Strike, Napalm Strike, Mail Strike, French Sheep Strike, Mike's Carpet Bomb, MB Bomb, and/or Concrete Donkey, if the CPU AI tried to analyze using one of those weapons, W:A would crash. (See Footnote 2.)
[CS] If a Worm was dropped into a pile of multiple overlapping Worms (from high enough to suffer fall damage), the worm would "hover" briefly the moment it hit the pile. It would actually be accelerating during this "hover", suffering extra fall damage as a result, prolonged more by every extra worm in the pile. In the most extreme case possible, with a 48th worm dropped into an pile of 47 overlapping worms, the game would be thrown into an endless loop.
[DC] A bug in v3.6.29.0 made it possible for a single Skunk to poison the same Worm twice, if the player's turn ended during the poisoning.
[DC] With TestStuff enabled, "use of weapons during a rope roll" had a bug; if a weapon such as Dragon Ball (which can normally only be fired while standing or jumping) was used from a rope roll, the rope would refuse to fire during the subsequent retreat time.
[DC] With the "BattyRope" option enabled (either explicitly or as part of TestStuff)
[DC] Ending one's turn while on the Jet Pack threw the game into an endless loop (a never-ending turn).
[DC] Guns (Shotgun, Handgun, Uzi, and Minigun) did not cut an attached rope, even with a point-blank hit to the anchoring cuff.
[DC] The camera would only follow a roping Worm if the player controlling it was holding arrow keys or pressing Space or Backspace.
[DC] If the terrain anchoring or supporting a Ninja Rope is destroyed, it will now detach the rope. (Previously, only a standard explosion would detach a rope.) This can happen in a number of ways:
part of the rope becomes submerged by rising water
the flames from a Napalm Strike or Flame Thrower burn the land anchoring or supporting the rope
a Mole Bomb or Mole Squadron digs through land that anchored or supported the rope
a Fire Punch, Kamikaze, Blow Torch or Pneumatic Drill destroys land that anchored or supported the rope (this can only happen with BattyRope enabled)
[DC] There was a tiny rounding error in attaching the Ninja Rope. It would often attach one pixel down, right, or down-right of where the fired rope actually hit the terrain.
[DC] There was a tiny rounding error in centring a gun blast (from a Shotgun, Handgun, Uzi, or Minigun). The blast would often be centred one pixel down, right, or down-right of where its line-of-fire actually hit the terrain.
[DC] If a Worm tried to Bungee off a cliff, and there was a Crate resting 41 to 46 pixels below the cliff top, the bungee would fail to fire and the Worm would fall.
[DC] The CPU AI would sometimes walk through an area, jump back and walk through the same area again.
[DC] The persistent flames of a Petrol Bomb took fewer turns to decay after the arrival of Sudden Death.
[DC] There was an extra 1.26 second delay between turns during Sudden Death with water rising disabled. This is because it took one second to raise the water by zero pixels, and a quarter of a second to linger while the camera savoured the moment.
[DC] The sprite of a Worm holding a Mole Bomb always showed the worm as standing flat, regardless of whether it may have been standing on a slope.
[DC] In a very tall map, the Mole Squadron would suddenly warp above the map after digging for no more than 36.20 seconds.
[DC] A Worm using the Pneumatic Drill while whizzing across the map (e.g., from Rope or Jet Pack, or even a jump) could hit something and make a sound effect, without actually damaging what was hit.
[DC] A Donor Card could give "-1x" of an item if the previous owner had an unlimited supply of that item. Since all teams normally have the same starting ammo, collecting this kind of donor card had no effect. Now, a donor card is no longer created if all the other teams already have an infinite supply. If an infinite supply is collected (which cannot happen anymore, barring future customisability enhancements), it will be displayed without an ammo count.
[DC] There was no smooth transition when a poisoned Worm became healthy due to its team collecting a Health Crate.
[DC] There was no smooth transition from the Freeze "aiming" state to the normal Standing state (e.g., when selecting Freeze then selecting Parachute while standing on land).
[CS] When landing from a Fire Punch, the Worm's sprite was not updated to reflect the land slope.
[CS] When teleporting directly on land (which can be easily done by pointing the cursor a short distance into the terrain), the Worm's sprite was not updated to reflect the land slope.
[DC] There have been some internal fixes regarding fatal injury while releasing a herded weapon and BattyRope Skip Go. These fixes have virtually no externally noticeable effect.
[DC] In an online game, in which at least two machines connected to the game each had at least two teams of different colours, and these two sets of colours had at least one colour in common, players would incorrectly see the secrets (e.g., weapon selection and collection) of teams whose colours they did not share. (Strictly speaking this fix doesn't affect the game logic, but it is tied to the logic version for fairness.)
[DC] It has always been the case that if a worm fired the rope during a fall or jump, the rope firing would be cancelled when the worm landed, ready to be fired again right away. However, a change made in v3.6.29.0 inadvertently caused the rope firing also to be cancelled when the worm finished landing, and started standing up.
[DC] It was possible to walk while a rope was firing, if that rope was fired while the worm was falling (from a jump, walking off a ledge, or dismounting from parachute or jet pack) and the worm subsequently landed. In v3.6.28.0 and earlier, this could result in the rope continuing to fire from the worm's hindquarters. In v3.6.29.0, it meant the rope could be fired a third time, in a different direction. It is no longer possible to walk while a rope is being fired.
[DC] The "UnFreeze" sound effect was played when a frozen worm drowned, even though the worm remained frozen.
[DC] If a missile, such as a Super Sheep with Sheep Heaven enabled, exploded extremely far from everything else (worms, oil drums, etc.), it would result in a "global explosion" due to an overflow bug.

[Deadcode]

Changes
[CS, DC] W:A no longer registers its associations automatically upon being launched. However, the previous behaviour may be restored by checking the appropriate checkbox on the Advanced Options screen, or by importing RegisterAssociations_Automatically.reg (from the Tweaks folder) into the system registry.
[CS, DC] In-game smooth (dithered) background gradient
[CS] The gradient is now rendered using a new method, which should fix performance problems on some system configurations.
[DC, CS] The dithering algorithm used for rendering the background for maps with more than 96 colours or non-standard height has been substantially improved.
[CS] The gradient is now drawn with a parallax effect. The effect can be disabled using the BackgroundGradientParallax_Disable.reg registry tweak.
[CS] The registry tweak SmoothBackgroundGradient_Disable.reg has been added. This tweak disables smooth gradients (forcing a coarse gradient) while still allowing the full cycle of detail levels to enable background debris, bitmap backgrounds and clouds.
[CS] Palette modification events occurring in the front end are now logged to "palette.log"; previously, they were only logged in-game.
[CS, DC] W:A now uses some workarounds to fix palette problems in the front end. Some of these workarounds may have undesired side effects, such as flickering or delays when switching from screen to screen, even if you did not previously experience palette problems in the front end. If the side effects are undesirable and you do not experience palette problems, you can disable the workaround on the Advanced Options screen, or import FrontendPaletteFix_Off.reg (from the Tweaks folder) into the system registry.
[DC] The FrontendPaletteFix registry setting, set by the FrontendPaletteFix_On/Off.reg tweaks, is a 4-bit bitfield, with each bit toggling a specific palette workaround. Thus, it's possible to selectively disable the palette workarounds by editing the registry setting directly.
[DC] The map size prompt, which is displayed in the Join screen if the host transmits a colour PNG map larger than a certain size (the default is a width × height larger than 8 megapixels), is now also used when loading a map from disk using the Map Editor. The warning limit for the map's area can be set on the Advanced Options screen. As before (since v3.6.28.0), it can also be overridden by creating a value named "MapAreaWarnLimit" of type REG_DWORD in W:A's Options key (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Team17SoftwareLTD\Worm sArmageddon\Options), which specifies the image area threshold, above which the game asks for a confirmation before loading the image. You can quickly set this value to the default value or disable the warning by importing MapAreaWarnLimit_Default.reg or MapAreaWarnLimit_Unlimited.reg (from the Tweaks folder) respectively.
[CS] Entering the Options screen will no longer reset the current resolution to a default value if it is not in the list of resolutions reported as available by DirectDraw.
[CS] The second asterisk (added in 3.6.28.0) has been removed from /me messages.
[DC] The host/join logs (in User\Logs) now use a triple bullet format (like Export Log), making non-chat log entries stand out unambiguously.
[CS] When hosting a Direct IP game with a custom channel scheme (using the Scheme parameter) and no explicitly-specified Game ID, W:A will automatically generate and set a Game ID to prevent accidental connections with an incorrect scheme (which lead to desyncs). As usual, the correct full wa:// URL can be obtained using the /url command.
[CS] wa:// URLs generated using the /url command will now specify the Game ID as the last parameter. The reason for this change is to prevent truncated URLs from seemingly functioning correctly at first, but ultimately causing a desync.
[DC] When joining a Direct IP game, the connection dialog box now says "Direct IP" instead of "Direct IP : Direct IP".
[DC] Due to general improvements in the in-game network code, a minor bug has been temporarily introduced (and will be fixed in a later version). For a client in an online game with 3 or more players, if the host stops responding (without detectably dropping the connection) during a remote client's turn, then the game will not automatically time out the connection.
[DC] Changes affecting game logic
[DC] There are no longer any built-in game time limits. These were limits that were applied in the front end but not in-game, resulting in seemingly inconsistent behaviour. Previously, if a round lasted for less than 2 seconds total turn and retreat time, it was treated as a draw. Otherwise, if it lasted for less than 5 seconds total turn and retreat time, or less than 15 seconds of total game time, the round was treated as a "win" with no winner (which was a bug).
[DC] Internal changes have been made to the "Random worm order" scheme option. This should have no discernable effect.

[Deadcode]

Features
[CS] W:A now uses Unicode for all clipboard operations when supported by the operating system.
[CS] An Advanced Options screen is now accessible from the Options screen, which allows configuring new settings, and settings previously only configurable using registry scripts and direct registry editing.
[CS] The Intro can now be skipped with a single tap of the Escape key.
[DC] It is now possible to skip the opening intro without using the /nointro command line option. To enable this, use the Skip Intro checkbox in the new Advanced Options Menu.
[CS, DC] All front end screens can now be exited with the Escape key.
[CS] When placing the mouse cursor at the bottom of the screen in the front end, W:A will now display a help hint.
[CS] Some combo boxes (e.g. scheme and map selection combo boxes) now drop down to taller list boxes.
[CS] You can now jump to and cycle through combo box entries that begin with a certain character by typing the said character on the keyboard.
[CS] List view controls (e.g. the WormNET player list) are now scrollable with the mouse wheel.
[CS] Ctrl+Delete and Ctrl+Backspace now delete and backspace a word respectively in front end edit boxes.
[CS] When W:A is started for the first time, the in-game screen resolution now defaults to the Windows desktop resolution instead of 640×480.
[CS, DC] When the network play screen is opened for the first time, the WormNET nickname now defaults to the Windows user name or, if it is not available, the computer name.
[DC] When W:A is launched, the default scheme "Intermediate" is loaded. However, this is no longer done every time you enter the offline multiplayer screen and Options screen. The game will remember the last scheme loaded.
[DC, CS] Clicking the "cheat" button in the Weapon Editor now flips into another screen instead of opening a modal dialog box. Currently this allows you to edit both Ammo and Delay for utilities. Clicking the "cheat" button a second time flips back to the normal weapon editor.
[CS] Provided that the computer is connected directly to the Internet, W:A will now attempt to auto-detect the external IP address by enumerating all IP addresses associated with the local hostname, and picking the first one that doesn't belong in a private or auto-configuration address range. This allows the /url command for hosted Direct IP games to work properly in the case that the computer's external IP has changed since the last time it connected to WormNET.
[CS] The /url command now also works when joining a game.
[CS] The WormNET button on the Network screen now automatically connects to WormNET using the "Autologin" link. The old behaviour can be restored by replacing the file ServerList.htm in the Graphics\ServerLobby subdirectory with OldServerList.htm.
[CS] A new HTML box has been added to the WormNET channel list screen. This box will be used to display up-to-date community and game-related news. 3rd-party server owners can send content to this box by placing it into <MOTD>...</MOTD> tags.
[CS] The W:A HTML parser now understands the EXTA tag. Having the same syntax as the A tag, it will create hyperlinks which, when double-clicked, will minimise the game and open the link specified by the HREF parameter in the default web browser instead of the in-game browser.
[CS] Flags have been added for Algeria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and United Arab Emirates.
[DC] Four Hungarian characters have been added to W:A's font set: õÕûÛ
[DC] You are now allowed to use any and all characters in game names. The length limit is still 29 characters. Using the characters <>'&" lowers the maximum length, and these characters will show up incorrectly in older versions of W:A.
[DC] The ß character is no longer automatically prefixed in front of hosted game names.
[CS, DC] Wrapped lines in chat history boxes are now indented. This prevents line wrapping from being abused to create fake messages.
[DC] Clipboard pasting in the front end now preserves newlines. They are shown as ↵ glyphs in the edit box, and while selecting text. When entered in WormNET / IRC, they are translated into | characters.
[CS] Sending notices is now supported using the /notice command, although W:A does not distinguish between incoming messages and notices.
[CS] A /hb command has been added to the WormNET IRC lobby, which is an alias for "/msg HostingBuddy".
[CS, DC] Web and E-mail URLs are now automatically parsed and converted to hyperlinks in message histories (WormNET, LAN and host/join screen).
[CS] WormNET private message formatting codes can now also be used for private messages in the host/join screen.
[CS] New private message formatting codes have been added: \u to start underlined text, \U to stop.
[CS] While the game is minimised, it will flash its taskbar button and produce a standard beep when the player receives a private message in the WormNET lobby or in the host/join screen, or when the player's nickname is mentioned in WormNET chat.
[CS] While the game is minimised from the host screen, it will flash its taskbar button when someone joins the game.
[CS] While the game is minimised from the join screen, it will flash its taskbar button when the host lights up.
[DC] The /afk or /away command may now be used in the network Join dialog. In the Away state, your game will automatically light up when the host lights up. This is especially useful for spectators. It also works for players who plan to actively play upon returning to the computer, in a casual game. In Away mode, once the game starts your turns will be automatically skipped (assuming you're not a spectator), just as if you'd entered /afk or /away in-game. The Away state will be remembered upon return from the game. In the Join dialog, typing in the chat or clicking most dialog buttons will cancel the Away state.
[CS, DC] Pressing Ctrl+Home will enable "Home Lock", making the camera remain centred on the current worm. Pressing and releasing Home disables it.
[CS] Home (or Home Lock) will override the effect of Scroll Lock. Both can be temporarily overridden by holding down the left mouse button.
[DC] Previously, when the Escape menu was open, any team cursor (such as a Teleport or Homing Missile cursor) would be hidden from view. Now, a team cursor is rendered in quasi-transparency when other cursors are in use.
[CS] W:A will automatically begin ignoring in-game chat from players who send more than 5 chat lines within the same second. When this happens, a message will be displayed with unignore instructions.
[CS] It is now possible to ignore players during the game using the /ignore and /unignore commands (in addition to the /ex and /inc commands, and using Ctrl+F1...F6). Typing /ex alone will now clear all ignores instead of ignoring all players, to be consistent with the behaviour of /ignore alone in the WormNET lobby and host/join screen.
[CS] W:A now saves the state of transparent labels, chat panel pinned status, home lock and the heights of pinned and unpinned chat panels between games.
[CS] The chat panel can now be shrunk (using Ctrl+Up) to the minimum size required to display all players (as small as one line).
[DC, CS] The screenshot function is now much faster. Whereas before, pressing Pause would cause the game to pause noticeably as the screenshot was created, it is now instantaneous. This means that the Export Video feature can now work at full frame rate or faster, even at moderately high resolutions. Note that by default, Export Video goes no faster than the normal frame rate; to get it to go as fast as possible, adjust the playback speed by holding 0 while pressing 9.
[DC] The Export Video dialog no longer has an upper limit on resolution.
[CS] It is now possible to automate Export Video by specifying export parameters on the command line, after the /getvideo switch. The order is as follows: /getvideo ReplayFile.WAgame framerate-divider start-time end-time resolution-width resolution-height basename. The syntax for the values is the same as in the Export Video option dialog. At least the frame rate divider must be specified; other parameters will be set to their default values if not specified. This feature can be used to extract a single frame as an image, by specifying the same start and end time.
[CS] Pressing Space during the playback of a recorded game will now skip to the beginning of the next turn.

[Deadcode]

[DC] Weapon Panel
[DC] In v3.6.28.0 it became possible to view the weapon panel during other players' turns, but the panel was still being automatically closed at the beginning and end of local turns, even though it could be reopened right away. The panel is no longer ever automatically closed; only a player's direct actions will close it.
[DC] Previously, it was not possible to view the weapon panel during other players' turns if there were multiple players on the same computer with different team colours. Now, a menu of team colours is displayed at the bottom of the panel in these cases, allowing the inventory of any local team to be viewed by clicking the team's colour swatch.
[DC] It is now possible to view the weapon panel during playback of a recorded game. A menu of team colours is displayed at the bottom of the panel, allowing any team's inventory to be viewed by clicking the team's colour swatch.
[DC] When the weapon panel is redrawn, the cursor position is now remembered even if it was on an empty square of the grid, or on a weapon that disappeared during the redraw. Previously, the cursor was reset to the upper-left corner of the panel in these circumstances.
[DC] Previously, Select Worm was hidden from teams with only 1 worm. Now, it is displayed in disabled form. (This is important if you have a stockpiled Select Worm that can persist to the next round.)
[DC] During manual placement at the beginning of a game, it is now possible to "reselect" the Teleport. This has no practical value and is just for consistency and fun.
[DC] Selecting a weapon from the weapon panel will now automatically close the chat panel.
[DC] A new "Sanitize Replay" feature has been added. This creates a copy of a replay with all private chat messages removed. To use this feature, right click on the WAgame file in Explorer and click "Sanitize Replay". The file "replay.wagame" will be sanitized to "replay {sanitized}.wagame".
[DC] It is now possible to view the contents of crates and fuses of random mines during playback of games played with v3.6.29.0+. Previously, these were displayed as question marks. This feature has not been made fully convenient yet; currently you must fast-forward almost to the end of the replay and then [R]estart it to see the contents of crates and fuses of random mines.
[DC] The Teleport fudging algorithm (which tweaks the position of the cursor if it is not precisely located in a spot allowing space for a Worm) is now much better at reading the user's intentions. If any fudging is needed, it will now be biased towards placing the Worm directly on land.
[DC] The resolutions in the Options Menu combo box are now sorted by total number of pixels. Resolutions that are identical in total number of pixels are sorted by height.
[DC] When using "Extract Scheme" on a recorded game file having an old logic version but including settings in its scheme that are interpreted by newer versions to represent customised Mines / Oil Drums and/or Jet Pack fuel, the extracted scheme will now have these settings reset to their default values, so that a game played on the latest version using this scheme will have the same settings as the actual recorded game did.
[DC] In v3.6.19.12, the Map Editor's Generate button was removed, and replaced with a Reseed button. The Generate button has now been brought back (inserted above the Reseed button), and generates exactly the same maps as it did before being removed.
[DC] Test versions
[DC] BattyRope, 150% Speed, and TestStuff have all been added to the latest game logic version, so that older versions will not need to be emulated to enable these options.
[DC] Girder Radius Assist has been added to TestStuff.
[DC] Note that TestStuff has been incremented to "version 7". However, emulation of earlier versions of TestStuff is now allowed. There is a warning message for this, because it results in the TestStuff feature list differing from the one that is automatically printed when the host enables TestStuff. The warning message will also clear all lights, allowing players to light up again if the emulation of an older TestStuff is not a problem.
[DC] Some new test versions have been added:
RacingStuff: This can be toggled with any one of the following commands: /rs, /race, /racing, /racestuff, or /racingstuff. This enables Phased Worms, in which worms pass through each other without resistance, and enables worm selection without ending hot seat time. This option is especially useful for Bungee Races.
BoomRacing: This can be toggled with any one of the following commands: /boom, /boomrace, or /boomracing. This enables Phased Teams, and enables worm selection without ending hot seat time. This option is especially useful for Boom Races and Assault Courses.
Phased Teams creates a condition in which enemy teams cannot influence each other in any way with some exceptions:
The landscape is shared, so terrain creation (girders, arrows) and destruction (explosions, Fire Punch, Kamikaze, Blow Torch, Pneumatic Drill, Mole Bomb, Mole Squadron, Napalm Strike, Flame Thrower) influence all teams. Worms standing on terrain may fall if that terrain is destroyed or pierced by an arrow; the creation of terrain puts an obstacle in the path of enemy teams, and its destruction removes an obstacle.
Rising water drowns all teams, regardless of who or what caused it to rise.
Destroying an Oil Drum will remove it as an obstacle, meaning Worms that were standing on it will fall.
If a Mine placed on startup is triggered by proximity, it will only directly damage allies of the team that triggered it. However, its disappearance will mean that it can no longer serve as an obstacle for enemy teams.
Anything that creates flames (Napalm Strike, Petrol Bomb, Oil Drum explosion) may erase pre-existing flames if the maximum number of flamelets is reached. The flames erased may belong to an enemy team.
Enemy Worms will visually hide the terrain covered by their sprites. (This is also a shortcoming of Phased Worms.)
These shortcomings may be addressed in a future Beta Update.
[DC, CS] Export Log changes
[DC] The WAgame file format version is now logged, right after the game logic version.
[CS] The W:A version used to export the log is now logged as well.
[DC] The turn time totals and associated team and player names (at the end of the log) are now formatted for improved readability.
[DC] Export Log will no longer fall into an endless loop when emulating the BattyRope Jet Pack bug. Note that there are other endless loop bugs that Export Log does not handle yet.
[DC] The "Damage dealt" log entries now include an accounting of kills.
[DC] The exported log will now indicate which player was the host.
Readme entries for versions in which CyberShadow and Deadcode collaborated (v3.6.28.0 and onward) have been annotated in small print to show which developer(s) implemented each fix and feature.
[DC] means it was implemented by Deadcode (David Ellsworth).
[CS] means it was implemented by CyberShadow (Vladimir Panteleev).
[CS, DC] means it was primarily implemented by CyberShadow, with adjustments by Deadcode.
[CS, DC] at the root of a tree means that most of the subentries were implemented by CyberShadow, and the rest by Deadcode.
Note that the [CS] and [DC] tags indicate coding credit only, and do not cover planning discussions and documentation edits.

[Balee]

Wow, that's awesome! :D

[X-Ray99]

Wow! I can't tell how grateful I am for this! Awesome! Thank you a lot!

[Metacooler]

At last!:rolleyes:

[CakeDoer]

Woooohooooo, awesome! Incredible job you two! Will download this night, fuuuuuuck yes! The new features are awesome, great, I love the changelog!

Keep up the spectacular work, we really appreciate it. <3

[CyberShadow]

Looks like a bug with version numbers (the /v command) slipped in.

[franz]

woo, reading all this might take a while, laa

great work I assume :D

my favorite fix is there, Skunk bug fixed.. no more using .28 !

[Pac-Man]

W:A always crashes at loading the game when using /boomrace in an online or lan game with only me as the player.
EDIT: Oops sorry, it now crashes at every game X) Layer 8-problem: Cuz of using WormKit
EDIT2: look at the post below for a more helpful info

[CyberShadow]

This is important:

Many WormKit modules are written to work with only one specific version of W:A, and will not work with other versions!

Trying to use these modules with versions of W:A for which they were not written will not work, and will probably crash your game.

Modules which will not work with 3.6.30.0, until their authors will update them:
RubberWorm
JetFix
Project X
ReplayShark
CinusKick
LaserFix
IndiMask

Modules which should still work:
WormNAT2
FileOverride
AntiKeyboardHook
SoundCardSelect

[Kayz]

Hard decision.
Either sticking to Rubberworm, or finally have no skunk bug anymore and being able to see replays. :(

[franpa]

[DC] There are some video cards/drivers under which SlowFrontendWorkaround_On.reg does not fix W:A's "slow front end" lag. It has been found that "SlowFrontendWorkaround_AntiFlicker" fixed the problem in at least one of these cases (with a GeForce 8800GTS 512MB). To reflect the wider use of this version of the slow front end workaround, it has been renamed. It is now enabled by importing SlowFrontendWorkaround_Alternative.reg (from the Tweaks folder) into the system registry, or by selecting the Alternative setting on the Advanced Options screen. Also, SlowFrontendWorkaround_On is now the default mode that W:A will assume if none of the SlowFrontendWorkaround tweaks have been imported into the registry. Note that the Alternative mode will most likely use the maximum CPU of one system core, whereas On and Off modes have lower CPU usage.I reported this a couple times with my 8800GT, the antiflicker is the only one that fixes lag, at the expense of menu transitions.


Overall a nice selection of changes done, some of which I find a little annoying but only time will tell just how annoying.

[GreeN]

Big thumbs up, guys!

Great to see this released. Fixes + changes sound fantastic :D

[franz]

Installation question. I had wondered this while I was stuck using .28 because of skunk bug, but never asked.

How safe is it to go back and forth between updates? By this I mean, for those people who might like reverting to old versions for certain things, and then upgrading to the newest version for other things.. can you simply run the installation .exe for each update without having to uninstall and start over?

Just curious :)

[franpa]

Why is the "y" shaved off in the player list when my name is set to Seismic-Bastudry? There are other names that take up more horizontal space and all characters can be shown :/

edit: I don't mean to rain on your parade in any way, I am just pointing this issue out.

[lDarKl]

Installation question. I had wondered this while I was stuck using .28 because of skunk bug, but never asked.

How safe is it to go back and forth between updates? By this I mean, for those people who might like reverting to old versions for certain things, and then upgrading to the newest version for other things.. can you simply run the installation .exe for each update without having to uninstall and start over?

Just curious :)

AFAIK you can have more than just one WA.exe - so you'd install i.e. 3.6.28.0, rename WA.exe to WA-28.exe (or something like that), then install 3.6.30.0 and you can run WA-28.exe anytime. Should work for an (almost) infinite number of different versions. :P

Great work guys.

[Muzer]

Because the nick limit is based on the number of characters, not the width of the font.



And calling all Linux users: you no longer have to endure the buggy old version of wine in Lookias's Play WA on Linux! The latest version works without patches! I have updated http://worms2d.info/Installing_WA_on_Linux

[CyberShadow]

Installation question. I had wondered this while I was stuck using .28 because of skunk bug, but never asked.

How safe is it to go back and forth between updates? By this I mean, for those people who might like reverting to old versions for certain things, and then upgrading to the newest version for other things.. can you simply run the installation .exe for each update without having to uninstall and start over?

Just curious :)
Not only that, but we tend to keep the other game files compatible between EXE versions. So, you can install an older version, copy the EXE file to something else (e.g. WA-3.6.29.0.exe), then install the latest version, and the older EXE should still work.

Why is the "y" shaved off in the player list when my name is set to Seismic-Bastudry? There are other names that take up more horizontal space and all characters can be shown :/

Um, not sure, are you sure this is a regression (that this is a new problem for .30)?

[Kayz]

AFAIK you can have more than just one WA.exe - so you'd install i.e. 3.6.28.0, rename WA.exe to WA-28.exe (or something like that), then install 3.6.30.0 and you can run WA-28.exe anytime. Should work for an (almost) infinite number of different versions. :P

Great work guys.

Works fine, ty for this hint.

[franpa]

Not only that, but we tend to keep the other game files compatible between EXE versions. So, you can install an older version, copy the EXE file to something else (e.g. WA-3.6.29.0.exe), then install the latest version, and the older EXE should still work.



Um, not sure, are you sure this is a regression (that this is a new problem for .30)?

I dunno, I only ever noticed it after updating. I do not really look in the player list for myself.

You did however forget to mention the /time command :)

[hundreds]

Rock on guys.

[CakeDoer]

You did however forget to mention the /time command :)

Yes, it works now!

[raffie]

This is awesome! Thank you!

[zookman]

I've found a fun little glitch; It seems to happen only on maps of a certain size, and only occurs past a certain detail level.

It keeps former frames on the screen.
http://imgur.com/N7IuA.png

This is a screeny i took on a map of size: 4200 x 24000, with a RR map in the middle. I froze the camera, and roped.
It's quite fun to see the path taken, but no doubt needs to be fixed.

[The Tor]

^ agreed. One fast workaround I've found, simply disable the background by hitting INSERT.
Nice shot there btw. ;)

[sebigut]

A friend of mine it's having crashes 1 second after the game enters to front menu since this update. Any help?

[Extremist2]

Heh. Looks like a good portion of your time was spent fixing bugs introduced by the last beta... :p

Anyways, this may have taken 2 years (in which time I stopped playing WA because certain things I liked about it had been messed up over time by the betas), but I'm tellin' ya, this was WORTH IT.

99% of the bugs that I've ever experienced with the game have now been completely or partially fixed, with the great majority in the former category.

As for the changes/added features, I approve of 95% of them, with only 1 or 2 of the ones that I don't like being potentially greatly irritating over time.

And as for:

Restoring full range of map detail
Fixing minimizing bugs
Making this the most polished looking & feeling WA ever

I totally love you guys. :)

P.S. I find it sad, that on the day it came out, I see people already posting possible new bugs. IMO, you should wait at least 72 hours, and give our benefactors a chance to bask in their glorious achivement!!! :D

[coste]

Ive got a nasty problem. When i minimize WA being in menus (Alt+tab, mouse click, shift+esc) and then maximize, game window becomes black and all i can see is some of the text (example: in host lobby i can see only my nickname, teamnames and chat), my mouse cursor dissapears but its still possible to navigate with mouse. When i hit Esc button it goes to previous menu, allowing me to see most of the colours and graphics used, but mouse cursor is still hidden. It only appears in menus/host lobby/etc. Also, i dont have any sound being in menus. Everything is fine ingame though, sound and minimizing work perfect.

Im using WinXP SP2, GF 7600GS

Also, i will quote my friend (its another case):
I installed wa on my laptop to test..
When i start the game it minimizes itself and it takes me 15 tries to finally get on the game, I played with krezo, colour bug the whole game and troubles to minimize.

[Xtreme038]

Is it known yet?
Were not able to start a game with the newest beta patch.
When were about to join game, an error occurs and the game closes.

I hope ya guyz are already workin on it..
Btw i'm not the only one with this problem...

Edit: Nvm, noticed it does'nt work with Wormkit Modules, méh.. >.<

[Lex]

P.S. I find it sad, that on the day it came out, I see people already posting possible new bugs. IMO, you should wait at least 72 hours, and give our benefactors a chance to bask in their glorious achivement!!! :DIt's a beta version for a reason. Those who use it are beta testers. They are expected to find and report unknown issues. Those who are posting bug reports are doing exactly what they should be doing.

[Extremist2]

Did I say to NOT report bugs?

No, just to give the programmers a bit of slack before you DO begin.

[CyberShadow]

Ive got a nasty problem. When i minimize WA being in menus (Alt+tab, mouse click, shift+esc) and then maximize, game window becomes black and all i can see is some of the text (example: in host lobby i can see only my nickname, teamnames and chat), my mouse cursor dissapears but its still possible to navigate with mouse.Try adjusting the Palette fix settings on the Advanced Options screen.When i hit Esc button it goes to previous menu, allowing me to see most of the colours and graphics used, but mouse cursor is still hidden. It only appears in menus/host lobby/etc. Also, i dont have any sound being in menus.Someone who's having issues with sound in the front-end, please contact me (#worms (http://worms2d.info/Worms_on_GameSurge) or at vladimir@worms2d.info).
Also, i will quote my friend (its another case):
I installed wa on my laptop to test..
When i start the game it minimizes itself and it takes me 15 tries to finally get on the game, I played with krezo, colour bug the whole game and troubles to minimize.Is this a problem with .30 that didn't happen with .29?

[SgtFusion]

Woooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooo!!!!1! Yes!! Yes!! Finally!! Yaharr!! Yoho!! It's finally here!!

[Extremist2]

Woooooooooooooooohooooooooooooooooooo!!!!1! Yes!! Yes!! Finally!! Yaharr!! Yoho!! It's finally here!!

Now here's a true believer! :cool:

[franpa]

I've found a fun little glitch; It seems to happen only on maps of a certain size, and only occurs past a certain detail level.

It keeps former frames on the screen.
http://imgur.com/N7IuA.png

This is a screeny i took on a map of size: 4200 x 24000, with a RR map in the middle. I froze the camera, and roped.
It's quite fun to see the path taken, but no doubt needs to be fixed.

It would be cool to leave this effect in at least as an option. It can make for some interesting and yet challenging games and lets you better optimize your routes.

[CyberShadow]

Whoops.
I've found a fun little glitch; It seems to happen only on maps of a certain size, and only occurs past a certain detail level.

Can you post a map or replay?

[zookman]

It would be cool to leave this effect in at least as an option. It can make for some interesting and yet challenging games and lets you better optimize your routes.

:) I agree, you can make some really cool images too.
http://imgur.com/EMHhL.png
http://imgur.com/Zc89h.png
http://imgur.com/haP7D.png

@CyberShadow
I first noticed it on this Tower map:
http://wmdb.org/10856
Another player also experienced it.

WAgame attached.

[CyberShadow]

Looks fine here.

A tester has previously encountered such a problem, but it was solved by updating graphics drivers. Can you try doing that?

[franpa]

Yeah that replay looks fine here :/

[zookman]

hmm..

you guys are pressing INSERT right?
i've played with 2 people on WN now who both have the same effect.

the gfx drivers i have atm are giving me the least problems, so i'd really prefer not to update :)

[CyberShadow]

Yes, it looks fine at all background detail levels.

It's not really unimaginable that more than a few people have outdated graphics drivers.

[Clavius_SA]

Whoa that's some speedy loading of wormnet and games. Awesome. As somebody who idly minimises a lot I love the little touches with that whole business. Mucho appreciated dudes, rock on.

[Lei]

YES!!!!!!!!!!!1one!!1!

[SilPho]

Wow! Awesome list of changes. Can't wait to dive in and play around with this.

Thank you guys, so much!!

[franpa]

Hello, I have stumbled upon this undocumented feature where the game will run with the WWP disc. Can you please explain what features do not work when running the game like this?

[CyberShadow]

Um, that's an unfinished feature that hasn't yet been approved by Team17. It's only present in the Beta executable due to a mistake.

[franpa]

From what I saw only the mission files can't be played but if you say it isn't complete then okay, I won't recommend it to anyone.

[Pac-Man]

I'm having the same problem with the frames, like a buffer isn't cleared (or nothing drawn in the background).
I'm using a Radeon HD4850 on Windows 7 with the driver version 9.10 because I can't use updated ones (because my DirectX 7 games do not run properly then and I need to port them).

Happens only on big maps for me.

[zookman]

I'm having the same problem with the frames, like a buffer isn't cleared (or nothing drawn in the background).
I'm using a Radeon HD4850 on Windows 7 with the driver version 9.10 because I can't use updated ones (because my DirectX 7 games do not run properly then and I need to port them).

Happens only on big maps for me.

I've found that using this tweak:
SmoothBackgroundGradient_Disable
fixes it.

[CyberShadow]

Um, has anyone actually even tried the supposedly correct fix and update their drivers?

[bonz]

New record of 7 posts of change log! :D

[Pac-Man]

I've found that using this tweak:
SmoothBackgroundGradient_Disable
fixes it.

That disables smoothed gradients at all, sure it fixes that. But it's not "what I want to see" ;)

[CyberShadow]

I'd also like to add that I think it's quite ironical that this problem is most likely caused by a change that intended to fix horrendous performance for some ATI video card / drivers.

[franz]

these minimize fixes and features are awesome :)

[DC] If you're a client, minimised while the host clicks "Play Again" or "New Match", you will no longer crash; instead, the game will flash its taskbar button and produce a standard beep. Likewise, the same will now happen if the host starts the game while you're minimised (which is normally not possible).

[CS] While the game is minimised, it will flash its taskbar button and produce a standard beep when the player receives a private message in the WormNET lobby or in the host/join screen, or when the player's nickname is mentioned in WormNET chat.
[CS] While the game is minimised from the host screen, it will flash its taskbar button when someone joins the game.
[CS] While the game is minimised from the join screen, it will flash its taskbar button when the host lights up.



Quick question about that Windows7 Registry fix for colors from http://forum.team17.co.uk/showthread.php?t=41652
Someone I know wanted to know how to undo this registry fix since the new update seems to work fine.. but I wondered if this fix might still be needed for the update to work. What would happen if the fix was deleted? Should it be left alone?

thanks :)

[CyberShadow]

The fix posted in that thread only affects the 3.6.29.0 EXE. It should have no effect on other W:A versions, or any other programs.

[doben]

I've found a fun little glitch; It seems to happen only on maps of a certain size, and only occurs past a certain detail level.

It keeps former frames on the screen.
http://imgur.com/N7IuA.png

This is a screeny i took on a map of size: 4200 x 24000, with a RR map in the middle. I froze the camera, and roped.
It's quite fun to see the path taken, but no doubt needs to be fixed.

i like that one, too. will try to recreate it when i have some spare time.
it's a great way to study movements in new map layouts!

[CakeDoer]

What's even more awesome is that games don't start with weird colours anymore, which is pretty awesome.

I love the minimizing features, new gradients, viewing the other team's weapon panel and RacingStuff, among other things.

Great work, again!

[SirGorash]

Hi, first of all thanks for your great work!

With this new version i dont have sound ingame and when minimizing and restoring everything gets corrupted, any clue?

[zookman]

Um, has anyone actually even tried the supposedly correct fix and update their drivers?

I updated to latest driver (10.10) but doesn't fix the issue.
It does however speed up front end navigation, which is nice :)

[CyberShadow]

With this new version i dont have sound ingameSurely you meant in the front-end, not in-game?and when minimizing and restoring everything gets corrupted, any clue?If you're talking about the front-end, enable/disable the palette fixes in advanced options. If in-game, try pressing Shift+Pause.

[CakeDoer]

I updated to latest driver (10.10) but doesn't fix the issue.

Maybe your avatar is the answer to all your troubles?

[Ombodi77]

[CS] The chat panel can now be shrunk (using Ctrl+Up) to the minimum size required to display all players (as small as one line).
Thank you very much ^^

[stepz]

I get massive Alarm from my Avira AntiVir, saying WA.exe is TR/Renos trojan....

[Insanozuke]

I get massive Alarm from my Avira AntiVir, saying WA.exe is TR/Renos trojan....

same problem here...
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/742/avira.jpg

:P

[zookman]

I get massive Alarm from my Avira AntiVir, saying WA.exe is TR/Renos trojan....

confirmed.

[Insanozuke]

ok, my antivirus is doing the same here
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/742/avira.jpg

[jsgnext]

Avira here.....same issue....
I ran it yesterday, without any alert.....it started today, after my antivirus updated....

[Telémaco]

Thank you very much for the new update, Team17!

Shame not have been pleased with esthetic surprises like new default elements (a fusion with WWP features), possibility of personalization for every worm per team, and things like those... But, it has to be said, a definitive solution for the colour palette issue in Vista/7 systems, is certainly a bless, and enough gift for us the players. Thanks a lot for that, you hard workers, we the loyal players of W:A (in our old age, we'll keep playing it for sure! xD) really appreciate it.

[xNTPxCammy]

So I have a pretty huge problem. I can't host anymore D:
Well I can, but everyone that tries to join gets a "Max Players" message and so nobody can join...

Worked fine with .29 btw.

Also to be noted is that I can join other games just fine. Love the faster joining :D

[xNTPxCammy]

So I have a pretty huge problem. I can't host anymore D:
Well I can, but everyone that tries to join gets a "Max Players" message and so nobody can join...

Worked fine with .29 btw.

Also to be noted is that I can join other games just fine. Love the faster joining :D

[CyberShadow]

I get massive Alarm from my Avira AntiVir, saying WA.exe is TR/Renos trojan....
Please report this file to your antivirus vendor as a false positive.
So I have a pretty huge problem. I can't host anymore D:
Well I can, but everyone that tries to join gets a "Max Players" message and so nobody can join...Are you using Wheat Snooper?

Wheat Snooper didn't follow the WormNET protocol for hosting games and exploited a bug in previous versions of W:A, which has been fixed. (You can check that this problem doesn't exist in other snoopers.) You'll need to ask Lookias to fix the bug and properly implement hosting games (not using a fake Game ID).

[QuadHammer]

Finally the long wait is over! This W:A update has been more than two years in the making. Enjoy.


Congrats to you both and thanks for all your hard work! :)

[Extremist2]

Congrats to you both and thanks for all your hard work! :)

And congrats to you for giving them congrats!!! ;)

[StepS]

Are you using Wheat Snooper?

Not only Wheat Snooper is currently incapable to host the games. Sometimes ProSnooper fails to get the GameID from the host list and puts the weird letters like "NWUORUCSICCDIOCE".

[X_xViox_X]

And calling all Linux users: you no longer have to endure the buggy old version of wine in Lookias's Play WA on Linux! The latest version works without patches! I have updated http://worms2d.info/Installing_WA_on_Linux

Well, I mounted the iso and ran it successfully without a CD (after a fresh install & patch), which was nice for a change.

The problems are: a glitchy frontend, which isn't a huge deal. It did black out when I exited the map screen, but I got the game back by pressing ALT+Space and then hitting Enter to re-focus the frontend.

The game is also quite glitchy due to the fact that the in-game mouse is trying to scroll to the top of the map. I have to do the Numpad7+Numlock trick to get the screen to center on my worm, but doing anything is difficult as the mouse is still moving on its own. The game is jittery, acting like it's paused unless I keep the mouse in constant motion. For instance, I can't move the worm at all unless I move the mouse around at the same time. Opening the Escape menu leaves the mouse at the top of that menu and I'm unable to select "end game."

Nitpicking: I preferred running it in a regular window with lookias' program. It made things easier especially when there was a problem. Pressing Alt+Space in game brings up the window's context menu but the "close" option is grayed out.

The good news is that I did get KeyChange to work with it! Now If i could only play.

(Ubuntu 9.1 64bit, Wine v1.3.5, AMD Phenom II x3, nvidia GeForce 8500GT 512mb. The problems are the same whether or not the CD is mounted.)

[CyberShadow]

and puts the weird letters like "NWUORUCSICCDIOCE".
That's a W:A feature:
[CS] When hosting a Direct IP game with a custom channel scheme (using the Scheme parameter) and no explicitly-specified Game ID, W:A will automatically generate and set a Game ID to prevent accidental connections with an incorrect scheme (which lead to desyncs). As usual, the correct full wa:// URL can be obtained using the /url command.

The problems are: a glitchy frontend, which isn't a huge deal.
I never noticed any of these problems, and I believe Wine testers didn't either.

[Ombodi77]

Thank you very much for didn't forget BoomRacers ^^
"/Boom" is great - tested :D

[franpa]

i've noticed too that sometimes (not always) when my friend hosts from ProSnooper that players attempting to join get a "Max Players!" message and thus can't join.

[StepS]

Ok, now Wheat hosting works. Just wait for an official release.

[bitmask]

i had a graphics problem on big maps like tower.
the background changed colours and shapes as the view changed position.
http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/1582/coolx.png
this only happens on giant tower maps, big maps like RR, BnA work ok.

ive got the lastest video diver, but its an old internal video chip, mabey the support is outdated.
SIS Mirage Graphics: SiS 661

whatever.

congrats on the new patch, nice work.

[Drury]

i had a graphics problem on big maps like tower.
the background changed colours and shapes as the view changed position.
http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/1582/coolx.png
this only happens on giant tower maps, big maps like RR, BnA work ok.

ive got the lastest video diver, but its an old internal video chip, mabey the support is outdated.
SIS Mirage Graphics: SiS 661

whatever.

congrats on the new patch, nice work.
SiS is piece of crap - I've had problems with it all the time, until I changed motherboard. Expect problems in other games soon...

[OldWorms1]

FINALLY, thankfully I'm on vacation this week & will have LOTS of time to play this & minecrack when the halloween update comes out.......:eek:

[Drury]

FINALLY, thankfully I'm on vacation this week & will have LOTS of time to play this & minecrack when the halloween update comes out.......:eek:
Yeah, I can't wait neither... I'll be killing ghasts all day long, and then crush Wormnet Russian noobs at night... Or crush Russians all day long and then explore hell at night? :eek:

But on topic, I think I forgot to say "Thanks a lot" to CyberShadow and Deadcode. Thanks a lot!

[KMZ]

Game chashed during dead worm explosion.... Errorlog and replay in attach. It crashes with replay too..

[CyberShadow]

Game chashed during dead worm explosion.... Errorlog and replay in attach. It crashes with replay too..
Only if the language is set to Russian, it seems.

I'll look into it.

[franz]

I've run into two times where my entire pc locks up completely frozen (unable to exit program, or use any key combinations to force quit), and this has happened while I was using the map editor.. I think cycling through map textures.

Using Windows7, I know all about the color bug, so I'll just point out that I notice there is a 'color flicker' for 1 frame every time I click a new map texture that I had never seen before.

I also ran into a weird new color problem that only started happening yesterday the 27th. It was the usual inverted color problem, but whereas before with .29 a quick minimize would fix it, this time every maximize would come back with colors fine for 1 second or 2 then go back to funky colors. Every repeated minimize/maximize resulted in the same effect. Still trying to pinpoint the cause and recreate with consistency.

Edit: I'm also unable to get players to join my host from prosnooper. they say it has 'max players'. I've just started joining wormnet normally and I can host fine that way, but just curious if I should just forget about hosting with the old classic prosnooper. thanks :)

[CyberShadow]

I've run into two times where my entire pc locks up completely frozen (unable to exit program, or use any key combinations to force quit), and this has happened while I was using the map editor.. I think cycling through map textures.That's strange. If you press Num Lock, does the light toggle on your keyboard?Using Windows7, I know all about the color bug, so I'll just point out that I notice there is a 'color flicker' for 1 frame every time I click a new map texture that I had never seen before.It's a side effect of the fix we added. You could try playing with the individual checkboxes on the Advanced Options screen, and see if you can find a combination that works best.I also ran into a weird new color problem that only started happening yesterday the 27th. It was the usual inverted color problem, but whereas before with .29 a quick minimize would fix it, this time every maximize would come back with colors fine for 1 second or 2 then go back to funky colors. Every repeated minimize/maximize resulted in the same effect. Still trying to pinpoint the cause and recreate with consistency.It can be caused by a program that persistently steals W:A's palette. You could have a look if you see anything interesting in palette.log. Also, pressing Shift+Pause should always fix the palette in-game, if it gets corrupted after a while.Edit: I'm also unable to get players to join my host from prosnooper. they say it has 'max players'. I've just started joining wormnet normally and I can host fine that way, but just curious if I should just forget about hosting with the old classic prosnooper. thanks :)Hmm, are you talking about the first version of ProSnooper (not ProSnooper 2)? We've fixed a bug which some snoopers (notably Wheat Snooper) exploited to avoid having to implement game hosting correctly. As far as I know, the latest version of ProSnooper2 doesn't have this problem.

[franz]

That's strange. If you press Num Lock, does the light toggle on your keyboard?

Thanks for the idea, I'll try that out next time.

It's a side effect of the fix we added. You could try playing with the individual checkboxes on the Advanced Options screen, and see if you can find a combination that works best.

It's not that annoying though, so I'll probably be too lazy to find out.. just was mentioning it if it pertained to anything. :)

It can be caused by a program that persistently steals W:A's palette. You could have a look if you see anything interesting in palette.log. Also, pressing Shift+Pause should always fix the palette in-game, if it gets corrupted after a while.

Shift+Pause, oh yea.. I remember hearing about that from irc #worms, thanks. I'll give that a try next time too.

As for palette.log, hmm, no idea what is relevant or not.. I just see a bunch of [explorer.exe], [[System Process]], but mostly [csrss.exe]

Hmm, are you talking about the first version of ProSnooper (not ProSnooper 2)? We've fixed a bug which some snoopers (notably Wheat Snooper) exploited to avoid having to implement game hosting correctly. As far as I know, the latest version of ProSnooper2 doesn't have this problem.

Yea sorry, by old classic prosnooper, I did mean ProSnooper2.. but still that problem happened. I only tried it once though, so I can keep trying and maybe ask more people to make sure it's not just the 1 person I've tried so far.

cheers :)

edit: yea, I was able to get someone to join my ProSnooper2 host. not sure what might've been the problem before. will keep testing moving forward to find any clues.

[CakeDoer]

Does wkColorFix still work? I get random colour distortions after minimising the game.

EDIT: Wait, Skype does that. Close Skype before playing WA, people!

[Bassking]

Thanks to CS and DC for this fantastic update. I really appreciate your work, guys. Everything's working fine, except one thing: I got no sound at all in the front-end. Is it a known bug? It happens to one friend of mine too.

[Pokkai]

Where are the advanced scheme options (eg. custom life points, mines, oil barrels, etc)

[Muzer]

Well, I mounted the iso and ran it successfully without a CD (after a fresh install & patch), which was nice for a change.

The problems are: a glitchy frontend, which isn't a huge deal. It did black out when I exited the map screen, but I got the game back by pressing ALT+Space and then hitting Enter to re-focus the frontend.

Hmm, I've never had this problem...

The game is also quite glitchy due to the fact that the in-game mouse is trying to scroll to the top of the map. I have to do the Numpad7+Numlock trick to get the screen to center on my worm, but doing anything is difficult as the mouse is still moving on its own. The game is jittery, acting like it's paused unless I keep the mouse in constant motion. For instance, I can't move the worm at all unless I move the mouse around at the same time. Opening the Escape menu leaves the mouse at the top of that menu and I'm unable to select "end game."

Really? I've never had problems at all with controls ingame. That sounds incredibly odd to me... is there anything special you have running/enabled that may be causing this?

Nitpicking: I preferred running it in a regular window with lookias' program. It made things easier especially when there was a problem. Pressing Alt+Space in game brings up the window's context menu but the "close" option is grayed out.

Well, you can still run it in a regular window like this, of course - just you obviously won't be able to get it completely fullscreened at native resolution.

The good news is that I did get KeyChange to work with it! Now If i could only play.

(Ubuntu 9.1 64bit, Wine v1.3.5, AMD Phenom II x3, nvidia GeForce 8500GT 512mb. The problems are the same whether or not the CD is mounted.)

Of course, just a few general checks - you're using the nvidia drivers for real hardware acceleration, right?

[Muzer]

Thanks to CS and DC for this fantastic update. I really appreciate your work, guys. Everything's working fine, except one thing: I got no sound at all in the front-end. Is it a known bug? It happens to one friend of mine too.
That's a known bug.

[lDarKl]

Where are the advanced scheme options (eg. custom life points, mines, oil barrels, etc)

Try holding down Shift while setting those options.

[Pokkai]

Try holding down Shift while setting those options.

Thanks a bunch!

[Bassking]

That's a known bug.

...and is there something I can do to help DC/CS solving it?

[StepS]

Someone said that 3.6.29.47 supports TS-8 emulation. How can this be and what's the difference? Also what's about "/beta" and "/alpha" forcing emulation, what are their effects? It sends some weird Desynchronised frame reports in purple colour during the game. o_o (User1 claims that user2 desynchronised at frame ####..)

[franpa]

Well presumably it forces the game logic to use 3.6.30 rather then the lowest version any of the games participants is using, causing that player to eventually desynchronize during the game.

[Muzer]

This was another feature accidentally left in .30.0. It allowed alpha testers to force emulation of the previous beta (.29.0), if they wanted the resulting replay to be able to be played back in beta versions or if they wanted to test beta emulation. /alpha switched it back to the highest possible version.

No idea why it causes desynchs though - maybe someone can enlighten us.

[Telémaco]

Please report this file to your antivirus vendor as a false positive.
Are you using Wheat Snooper?

Wheat Snooper didn't follow the WormNET protocol for hosting games and exploited a bug in previous versions of W:A, which has been fixed. (You can check that this problem doesn't exist in other snoopers.) You'll need to ask Lookias to fix the bug and properly implement hosting games (not using a fake Game ID).

Oh yes, I have the same problem. People can enter in my host, if host directly inside the game, but if I host using Wheat Snooper, they cannot enter to my games. On the other hand, I CAN enter to other games using Wheat Snooper.

[Muzer]

Oh yes, I have the same problem. People can enter in my host, if host directly inside the game, but if I host using Wheat Snooper, they cannot enter to my games. On the other hand, I CAN enter to other games using Wheat Snooper.
Yes - as CyberShadow said, it's Wheat Snooper's fault for not following the WormNET protocol correctly (the previous versions of the game didn't care, but that caused other bugs in the game itself).

[Telémaco]

Ok, now Wheat hosting works. Just wait for an official release.

What? What are you talking about? = S

Yes - as CyberShadow said, it's Wheat Snooper's fault for not following the WormNET protocol correctly (the previous versions of the game didn't care, but that caused other bugs in the game itself).

Hahaha... so, we'll have to wait for a new update program (this time from lookias) in order to get all things related to the game working perfectly.

Oh... by the way, a gaming partner mentioned yesterday something regarding to a what he marked as, "a kinda minimal bug with the command /version in the setting game screen". I don't know if it is a bug, that is what he said, personally I never noticed of the existence of that command: "appears a V instead the BETA version".

[Muzer]

Yeah, that one is already known - again, it'll be fixed with the other regressions in the next beta (which should, theoretically, be quite soon).

[KMZ]

I made small wormkit module for fix missing version string... In attach...

[StepS]

What? What are you talking about? = S
Hahaha... so, we'll have to wait for a new update program (this time from lookias) in order to get all things related to the game working perfectly.
I meant that the hosting from Wheat Snooper is already fixed, but not yet published (wait for Monday). However the game reopening without rehosting feature won't work anymore. :(
Edit: it actually works well and perfectly, even for passworded games. Get it here (http://lookias.worms2d.info/download.php).

[franpa]

Oh I think my friend worked out how to reproduce the problem with ProSnooper. If you host a game with it then later re-advertise the game since it's listing in #AG timed out or some such. People then attempting to join will get a "Max number of players" message. This affects attempting to join the game via DirectIP too.

[Pac-Man]

Btw, wasn't the dithering method changed?
This looks weird :)
http://img.webme.com/pic/d/dr-chat/screen0002.png

[franpa]

It's better then what it was.

[StepS]

Oh I think my friend worked out how to reproduce the problem with ProSnooper. If you host a game with it then later re-advertise the game since it's listing in #AG timed out or some such. People then attempting to join will get a "Max number of players" message. This affects attempting to join the game via DirectIP too.
well, this problem was always a problem for much snoopers, even Wheat. A new method was now found - if a host already exists, when hosting, Wheat will first delete it and then get the new GameID and host as usual.
It's a bit bad for ProSnooper users, since it isn't being updated.

[X_xViox_X]

Hmm, I've never had this problem...

Of course, just a few general checks - you're using the nvidia drivers for real hardware acceleration, right?

Beats me, but would that make a difference now, even though these problems didn't exist before on the first installation with Lookias' program?

Also, now it's not working at all from the mounted image installation. "Front-end video initialization error **Error ** : from Graphics Subsystem , Unable to set desired video mode"

Maybe because I had a second monitor going when I started it(?), but then I went back to one monitor and it still gave this error message.

The funny part is that v.30 works just fine with Lookias' wine-wrapper, and the first/other installation. I would rather run from a mounted image though, since Lookias' proggy needs the cd :(

[Muzer]

Are you trying to run it in fullscreen mode or something? Try enabling a virtual desktop in winecfg.

[Lex]

Btw, wasn't the dithering method changed?
This looks weird :)Yeah, that looks awful. You should probably just turn off the background, since it does nothing but distract anyway.

[Telémaco]

Yeah, that one is already known - again, it'll be fixed with the other regressions in the next beta (which should, theoretically, be quite soon).

Ok, then... ^^ Let's hope that theory become true, especially if that means new gaming features like... PC teams in online games? :rolleyes:


I meant that the hosting from Wheat Snooper is already fixed, but not yet published (wait for Monday). However the game reopening without rehosting feature won't work anymore. :(
Edit: it actually works well and perfectly, even for passworded games. Get it here (http://lookias.worms2d.info/download.php).

Good to hear that too.

PS: Nah... that new version, at these days, suddenly, started with failures. Appeared this error message http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7355/nuevaimagenep.th.png (http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7355/nuevaimagenep.png)and I never could use the snooper, it crashed at the moment I opened. I had to return to the previous portable version and that one worked, but with the discovery of the hosting problem due to incompatibility with the new BETA... xD

[CyberShadow]

A friend of mine it's having crashes 1 second after the game enters to front menu since this update. Any help?Is your friend still having this problem? What kind of a crash is it?

[CyberShadow]

I've found a fun little glitch; It seems to happen only on maps of a certain size, and only occurs past a certain detail level.
I'm having the same problem with the frames, like a buffer isn't cleared (or nothing drawn in the background).
Someone who's having this problem, please contact me on #worms (http://worms2d.info/Worms_on_GameSurge).

[poninja]

Goodbye RubberWorm, CinusKick and AntiKeyboardHook :(

[Muzer]

Why goodbye AntiKeyboardHook? Have you even read http://blog.worms2d.info/wormkit-and-3-6-30-0 (which was linked to from the most recent article in the wormnet news box until today)?

[sebigut]

Is your friend still having this problem? What kind of a crash is it?

No, he had to format the PC (for other reasons). When he reinstalled the game it worked perfectly, so we are not really sure what caused the issue.

[Telémaco]

The last adjustments from lookias did work. Now all perfect for W:A using Wheat Snooper. ^^:D

[xNTPxCammy]

I have a problem on Windows 7, if I ever minimize the game it won't let me bring it back into focus, so it basically gets stuck in the taskbar and I have to use the Task Manager to end the process. (Hitting "Switch To" under Task Manager doesn't do anything either)

Other than that, the update works great.
Tested under XP Pro 32bit and Windows 7 Pro 32 bit

[CyberShadow]

Are you running W:A "as administrator"? And, does this problem happen with 3.6.29.0?

[SgtFusion]

I had the same problem under Windows 7. It also happened with 3.6.29.0.

[CakeDoer]

Don't run it as an administrator, that happens when you do this.

[Pac-Man]

Don't run it as an administrator, that happens when you do this.

I always run it as administrator (I sent UAC to hell) and do not have this problem.

[CyberShadow]

The problem occurs when you run W:A as administrator with UAC enabled, due to User Interface Privilege Isolation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Interface_Privilege_Isolation).

[Pac-Man]

Ok. Another reason for not using it.

Btw, I have the strange feeling that the height of the pinned chat window is not saved.


To explain it: I have a chat window with a height of 3 lines (stored in a game before). I pin it, and when I press page up, the chat window is about 10 lines high. Pressing Ctrl+Up makes it 2 lines high.

[NAiL]

Great work guys, I wont be updating until rubberworm mods work with it though (like other rubber users).

[Domi]

Great work guys, I wont be updating until rubberworm mods work with it though (like other rubber users).

http://worms.jcom.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=36&p=201#p201

[StepS]

NAiL, well, Pisto is not going to make the RubberWorm for 3.6.30.0. As you know, he gave up when developing version 1.0, and gave the source to Deadcode. This is going to be implemented into the next Beta update officially. Try the custom one by the link above.

[CyberShadow]

This is going to be implemented into the next Beta update officially.Sorry, not the next.

[StepS]

Sorry, not the next.
Bad news from you:(
Upd: the rubberworm for 3.6.30.0 is updated. You must update it and then you will be able to play with old 3.6.29.0 rubber users without problems.;)

[Muzer]

Well, the next is just a bugfix release anyway. It was supposed to come after a few days, but more bugs were discovered...

[StepS]

Well, the next is just a bugfix release anyway. It was supposed to come after a few days, but more bugs were discovered...

yeah, I know, I talked with Deadcode a couple days ago.:p

[NAiL]

http://worms.jcom.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=36&p=201#p201

ahhh, so kaos works with new update, thats GREAT! Rubber schemes are the future (til 4.0)!

Ill update as soon as I get round to installing WA again on this new comp.

[franpa]

What IS Kaos?

[Muzer]

A group of schemes. I've only tried Kaos Shopper, but it's basically like shopper but fun.

[StepS]

ahhh, so kaos works with new update, thats GREAT! Rubber schemes are the future (til 4.0)!

Ill update as soon as I get round to installing WA again on this new comp.

Yes it works, thanks to Kawoosh to his effort of porting it. However, the 3.6.31.0 is incoming, but this will take him only 1-2 days to port again.
By the way, almost all rubber features are implemented except Worm Bounce and gravity (black hole etc). Also, you can play normally together with old WA-rubber users (from .29.0) without desyncs (if there are no rubber and gravity sure). And of course, you can view the old rubber replays. Soon the flamelimit and kaosmod features, needed for the Kaos league, will be added too.
The latest update of this module: the 12th of November 5:00 AM GMT, I recommend you to update to have more features inside.;)

[FelipeD]

I installed, but when i try to minimize in the front-end I get an error "from graphic
subsystems "and when I minimize in-game the game freezes. How to solve?

[FelipeD]

I reinstalled and its fixed

[-AW-]

Someone who's having this problem, please contact me on #worms (http://worms2d.info/Worms_on_GameSurge).

Cybershadow, I'm getting an error trying to install the game on Ubuntu 10.10 and the latest Wine. There isn't any installation errors on 9.04 with Wine 1.1 but the space button doesn't work well so I can't beat Mission 1. This is the error.

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/2285/screenshotsf.png

[NAiL]

What IS Kaos?

http://wormtube.worms2d.info/84/kaos_normal_presentation

[Muzer]

Cybershadow, I'm getting an error trying to install the game on Ubuntu 10.10 and the latest Wine. There isn't any installation errors on 9.04 with Wine 1.1 but the space button doesn't work well so I can't beat Mission 1. This is the error.

<Mahoosive image snipped>

What do you mean by "latest wine"? There are many possible latest versions - latest stable release, latest unstable release, or latest release in your distro.

Please try to follow this tutorial: http://worms2d.info/Installing_WA_on_Linux