Recent changes

[Zarel*]

Hey, guys!

I think I'll maintain a list of major changes here. We also have a commit log with all the details, but it usually has a lot of minor changes.

This post will most likely be updated every few days. Feel free to discuss these changes. New changes will be added to the top. Smaller bug fixes, server-side changes, and BW2 updates won't be posted here.

[Wednesday, Apr 24]
- We now have a beta Gen 4 OU ladder available.

[Monday, Apr 22]
- Option to disable lobby chat

[Saturday, Apr 13]
- New options menu
- Option to disable animations
- Option to ignore spectators

[Friday, Apr 5]
- All registered servers (not just the main server) can now upload replays
- Replay uploading is a lot more reliable now (you'll never see another hash mismatch error)

[Wednesday, Apr 3]
- The format list has been rearranged into four main categories: Singles, Doubles, Other Metagames, and Past Gens. It should be easier to find the format you're looking for now.

[Friday, Mar 29]
- HP bars are now colored

[Friday, Mar 22]
- Custom server URLs are now in the form: id.psim.us instead of play.pokemonshowdown.com/~~id

[Sunday, Mar 10]
- You can now play Generation I with other users via challenge in Gen 1 Custom Game. Mechanics are enforced, but Clauses are not.
- /dex is now alias for /data and /smogdex is the new /dex. It has now support for items, moves, and abilities.

[Sunday, Feb 09]
- Chat history: You may now press up and down keys to navigate between your sent sentences in chat.
- Timestamps are now separated for Lobby and PMs, type /help timestamps for more info.
- /lobbychat on|off command to set the Lobby chat on or off for less lag.

[Friday, Feb 01]
- New feature: You can now select highlighting words, see /help highlight for more information.

[Sunday, Jan 27]
- You can now tab-complete user names in the main chat, in battles, and in private messages. Details.

[Monday, Jan 21]
- You can now click on chat names to open their trainer window to challenge or PM.
- Challenge Cup 1vs1 available via challenge.

[Friday, Jan 18]
- New feature to block incoming challenges: /away to activate, /back to accept challenges again.

[Thursday, Jan 10]
- We now have a new battle timer; it should make timerstalling much less effective

[Thursday, Dec 13]
- VGC 2013 can now be laddered

[Wednesday, Dec 12]
- Doubles have now arrived at public testing. They can be played by challenging other users. Three formats are available: Doubles Random Battle, Doubles Custom Game, and Doubles VGC 2013

[Tuesday, Dec 11]
- The replay database now has a search feature: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/search

[Wednesday, Nov 7]
- The rejoin bug is finally fixed. You shouldn't have to do anything weird to be able to rejoin a battle you've disconnected from anymore.

[Wednesday, Oct 31]
- Servers can now have their own formats! The format list is no longer shared between servers. Instead, every server can have whatever formats and ladders they wish.

[Wednesday, Oct 3]
- Hurricane, Whirlwind, and Earth Power receive animations.

[Tuesday, Oct 2]
- It is now possible to choose the order of your entire team if you're using Zoroark.

[Sunday, Sept 30]
- Implemented replays: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/

[Saturday, Sept 29]
- The ladder has been reset and the algorithms changed. Your rating will no longer ever decrease when you win. In addition, you should see no more references to bonus pool.
- Matchmaking has been enhanced: You should be battling mostly players with similar rating as you.

[Thursday, Aug 23]
- Added a Backup/Restore feature to the teambuilder. You can now back up and restore all your teams at once, instead of doing them one at a time. Those of you with weird cookie settings are advised to use this method to backup your teams.

[Tuesday, Aug 14]
- The networking protocol format has been changed from JSON to a more-optimized text-based format. This can reduce bandwidth requirements by a ton.

[Saturday, Aug 11]
- The teambuilder will suggest EVs and natures. The suggested spread is usually (but not always) [one of] the best - this feature is targeted mainly at casual users. Experienced users might also find it faster to tweak the suggested spread rather than start from scratch.

[late July - early August]
- There have been numerous adjustments to server performance, but unfortunately none of them have been as successful as I have hoped. I'm still trying various other tweaks.
- The server is now on port 8000 again, because of firewalls. Port 80 is still available: http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/~~showdown:80

[Friday, Jul 20]
- The login server protocol has been rewritten: I'm 99% sure you'll never have problems logging in again
- The server now uses port 80: if your workplace/school blocks PS or you were having problems connecting to PS before, you should be able to connect now
- Several optimizations have been made to PS, dramatically decreasing its bandwidth usage (this should lead to an increase in performance)
- Some changes to the server has made it much more resilient against DDoS attacks

[Tuesday, Jul 10]
- The teambuilder pokemon list now adapts to the selected tier
- Our IE8 detection was broken; it's been fixed: you will no longer be able to play using IE8

[Monday, Jul 9]
- Some more ladder tweaking has been done (the formula for ACRE was changed)
- The ladder now explains the columns in much more detail (mouse over the column title)
- The Glicko2 column now displays rating and deviation

[Saturday, Jul 7]
- Random battle levels have been revised a bit; fully-evolved NU/RU pokemon are now several levels lower than before
- Lobby lag from large numbers of users has been significantly alleviated
- Some ladder improvements are being experimented with, more will come later
- Pokemon XD moves are now available for use in teams

[Friday, Jul 6]
- Network library moved from socket.io to SockJS; this should significantly improve our lag conditions
- The teambuilder can now import from PL

[Thursday, Jul 5]
- Sort the user list by name

[Monday, Jul 2]
- Pokemon nicknames are now limited to 20 characters

[Sunday, Jul 1]
- Show your own pokemon's HP numbers (instead of just percentages)

[Zarel*]

btw, you know you can post here, right? I'm a bit curious to know if people have any opinions/reactions to the recent changes

[Antar*]

(I could have posted even if this thread had been locked, but...)

We <3 you, Zarel, and we very much appreciate all the hard work you and the PS dev team have been doing.

I continue to be impressed by how well PS performs with the number of users that are on the server.

[Soarin]

Finally you got my "Smart Teambuilder" Idea implemented. I also had another idea. But i forgot what it was atm.

[Pharen]

Originally Posted by Fat Antar

(I could have posted even if this thread had been locked, but...)

We <3 you, Zarel, and we very much appreciate all the hard work you and the PS dev team have been doing.

I continue to be impressed by how well PS performs with the number of users that are on the server.

Almost reaching 800 D: ..

[Antar*]

Originally Posted by Fat Pharen

Almost reaching 800 D: ..

The next time someone questions whether ditching PO was really a good idea, I'm going to wuote them this post.

[akela]

I am impressed with how you all are dealing with the lag. Along with the endless complaints about bugs not being fixed instantaneously.

[Djqubi]

Is there going to be B2/W2 Avatars?

[Arcticblast]

The only avatars that won't be implemented, I presume, are those from before DPPt, as all of those had smaller sprites and would look out of place. The general population either doesn't have access to BW2 or doesn't want to download a half-translated ROM, and even then the sprites need to be ripped (probably have been already, in which case forget this point).

[akela]

Originally Posted by Fat Arcticblast

The only avatars that won't be implemented, I presume, are those from before DPPt, as all of those had smaller sprites and would look out of place. The general population either doesn't have access to BW2 or doesn't want to download a half-translated ROM, and even then the sprites need to be ripped (probably have been already, in which case forget this point).

The trainer sprites are already ripped and on the internet. They've been on The Spriters Resource for about 2 weeks now.

[Zarel*]

I know about them, but BW2 avatars are ridiculously low priority at this point... I have so many things I need to deal with first (the server's down! wtf!)

[nyttyn]

[Sunday, Jul 1]
- Show your own pokemon's HP numbers (instead of just percentages)

This is basically the best change ever.

[Monday, Jul 2]
- Pokemon nicknames are now limited to 20 characters

Noooo D: I enjoyed my overly long names of doom! Bring it back up to 30 or 40 even? >.>

[Antar*]

Originally Posted by Fat nyttyn

[Monday, Jul 2]
- Pokemon nicknames are now limited to 20 characters

Noooo D: I enjoyed my overly long names of doom! Bring it back up to 30 or 40 even? >.>

I'd actually prefer they were limited to 10 to emulate the games as closely as possible. Also, imo, non-nicknamable pokes (Celebi, Mew, etc.) shouldn't be allowed to have nicknames. But that's just me.

[Sambobz]

Request: I would really like to be able to view my pokemons stats in battle. I have come to rely on this feature in PO and I find it takes too long to go to team builder look at the stats and calculate the changes in PS.

[nyttyn]

Originally Posted by Fat Antar

I'd actually prefer they were limited to 10 to emulate the games as closely as possible. Also, imo, non-nicknamable pokes (Celebi, Mew, etc.) shouldn't be allowed to have nicknames. But that's just me.

oh arceus please no. One of the cool things about PS! has always been that you can have these absurd pokemon names that you couldn't due to the 10 char limit ingame. Taking that away would take away a bit from the magic :<

[Buttobi]

Originally Posted by Fat Sambobz

Request: I would really like to be able to view my pokemons stats in battle. I have come to rely on this feature in PO and I find it takes too long to go to team builder look at the stats and calculate the changes in PS.

I completely agree with this.

[Shauntal]

Originally Posted by Fat nyttyn

[Sunday, Jul 1]
- Show your own pokemon's HP numbers (instead of just percentages)

This is basically the best change ever.

[Monday, Jul 2]
- Pokemon nicknames are now limited to 20 characters

Noooo D: I enjoyed my overly long names of doom! Bring it back up to 30 or 40 even? >.>

I totally agree and I also think that voices should be able to temporarily mute users

[Iminyourcloset]

Originally Posted by Fat Shauntal

I totally agree and I also think that voices should be able to temporarily mute users

If we're going to up the power of Voices, we need to give Drivers the ability to forcerename people to a specific name, please and thank you ;)

[verbatim]

Originally Posted by Fat Shauntal

I totally agree and I also think that voices should be able to temporarily mute users

There are no plans to give voices extra powers at this time. It is mainly meant as an "attaboy" in that it doesn't give much more than recognition of the fact that the user in question is an exceptional member of the Pokemon Showdown community. The job of a voice is to be helpful, using !commands to explain things to newcomers, it is not, however, meant to be an authoritative role.

[Ricky Horror]

I would Fucking love a chat for IPhone users. At some point of course.

[Shauntal]

Ok, thanks for the clarafication verbatim. But i dont know if this in the mechanics but why does it say "Fat Shauntal" when people quote me?

[Antar*]

Originally Posted by Fat Shauntal

Ok, thanks for the clarafication verbatim. But i dont know if this in the mechanics but why does it say "Fat Shauntal" when people quote me?

It's a Smogon-wide thing. When you quote someone on the forums, it calls them fat. The person who coded up the forums obviously had an overabundance of maturity.

[naagza]

Originally Posted by Fat Arcticblast

The only avatars that won't be implemented, I presume, are those from before DPPt, as all of those had smaller sprites and would look out of place.

Even if the sprites are completely different and may look out of place, I'm sure there would be many that wouldn't be too bothered by it. I mean, it might be great to allow players the option to use Generation III sprites (particularly since we aren't seeing Hoenn remakes yet :P and some of the new gym leader sprites in B2W2 look a bit weird). Although the sprites are different, they are relatively close enough given the color they have. I mean, you can see a huge difference between Generation II and III with that.

I realize it would be low priority, but I don't think the idea should automatically be thrown out.

[Zarel*]

Because of the DDoS attack on PS, I was working on getting PS back up, rather than updating it, so we went 10 days without an update. Today, the DDoS attack has been successfully repelled.

[Friday, Jul 20]
- The login server protocol has been rewritten: I'm 99% sure you'll never have problems logging in again
- The server now uses port 80: if your workplace/school blocks PS or you were having problems connecting to PS before, you should be able to connect now
- Several optimizations have been made to PS, dramatically decreasing its bandwidth usage (this should lead to an increase in performance)
- Some changes to the server has made it much more resilient against DDoS attacks

[Pwnemon]

i love you

does congress give out the medal of honor for heroism in supporting Pokemon sims against all odds?