There have been quite a few changes to the game code in this upcoming release that Alf is now running.
Instant Message and Template Change Popups
The javascript alerts for an instant message and changing to a new template are now GONE. They have been replaced with a CSS DIV tag popup. You can click on anything that is visible, unlike with the javascript alert, while the message box is open. There is a black and blue box for template changes and a red box for incoming messages. You can't miss it.
There is a button on each to erase the popup. The template change popup has a button to take you back to the options screen if you hate the template. The instant message popup has a button to take you directly to read the new messages.
We made these changes because some of the more lamer versions of IE wouldn't display the page while a java alert was active. This meant that you couldn't see the new template until after you decided to keep it. The new DIV popup fixes that.
The same thing would happen when in an instant message came in. This way there are no delays when an instant message arrives.
Tournament Mode Template
Apparently no one decided to tell us that the Tournament Mode display was completely broken.
There were missing graphics, missing news scroll and the shoutbox scroll wasn't working. I have now fixed all of these things. It should look better than it did.
Changes to Expired Online Time
We decided to make a change to what would happen when you ran out of online time when time limits were set. What used to happen is you would be immediately logged off when you went over your online time. Plus you wouldn't be able to log into the game.
This really put a cramp in Tournament games when players wanted to use the Team Chat or send messages to team mates or just taunt the other team.
Once your time was up you were gone with no way to contact anyone on your team.
With the new change you are NOT logged out of the game when you run out of time. You get to stay in the game but you are placed in Tournament Setup Mode. This is the mode every player is in when a tournament is getting setup and waiting to start. You have a very limited main screen where you can read your logs, chat, send messages, use the shoutbox, change teams and options. You can't do anything else. You can't move tour ship, interact with your planets. Nothing, because all of the other urls are blocked.
In a way this can be worse than not being able to log on.
Why?
Because you can be online and start getting instant messages about being attacked and not do a damned thing about it.
If you have team mates online at the same time, you can alert them and hope they can get to you in time.
When you run out of game time you can stay online but you can't play.
What could be more agonizing?