Today at 18:00h CET the service has been restablished by our ISP. Right now we haven't received any convincing explanation about why they had our customers without service during 22 hours right in the middle of a weekend. We are studying the measures we will take about it.

To receive a compensations for all the inconveniences caused by this annoying annoying situation, please send a message from our CONTACT SUPPORT section stating COMPENSATION in the subject and your account LOGIN in the body message.

--The PrisonServer Team

Today at 20:00h CET the link to our game servers has been interrupted by a network shortage of the ISP that host our servers. We hope the breakdown will be fixed as soon as possible, and whenever the service is restablished again we will take measures to compensate our users for all this downtime. We are very sorry for the inconvenience.

-- The PrisonServer Team

12:53h. GMT+1 - Problems resolved. Sorry for the inconvenience.

12:30h. GMT+1 - At this moment there are connectivity problems to the game servers due technical problems. We are working with our service provider to resolve this as soon as possible and will update this announcement as soon it gets sorted out.

The datacenter where we host the servers has reported power supply problems on our rack. This has been corrected now and everything is working as usual.

The downtime's been for two hours.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

--The PrisonServer Team

Today we will move temporarily the english prison servers to our installations in France. This is due to a recolocation of the servers from the current ISP to another one with lower network latency and better network infrastructure.

We hope to have it all sorted out in a few days, so you will experience a better connection then. In case the service is interrupted or unusable from the country/region you are connecting from please send an email to .

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Best regards,

--The PrisonServer Team

The game client now has a new option for questing/combinations. We hope it will help you all to discover all the quests, stategies to level up, and above all to make your life in here a bit more comfortable.

Now there is a button at the upper-right corner of all the combination/questing screens, right beside the list of items to give/combine.

By clicking on this button a list will be displayed with ALL the possible combinations or ALL the items accepted by the quester Non-Player Character.

Just like with the "history of combinations and quests", you can see all the information about the combination/quest by placing the mouse pointer on top of it, and by clicking the items for the combination will be prepared to be given/combined. Nice, istn't it?

In this new listing, the combinations will be always sorted in ascending difficulty level (easier at top, harder at bottom), but the quests qill be sorted in the following way: first, all the experience quests; then, all the other quests, sorted by level required to complete the quest (easier at top, harder at bottom). The old "history" (button at the left side) is still useful, as it will still display only the quests/combinations you already did at least once, with the oldest one at the bottom of the list, and the most recent at the top.

Keep in mind that this new listing, when showing a list of quests, will show only the quests available for yout offence, so the listing won't show the same list of quests to everybody. In other cases, some items listed can be given only by some offences, as only those offences can get those items by questing.

Have fun!

--The PrisonServer Team

Premium accounts and subscription plans are up. You'll be able to get your premium account from the "manage account" section.

You'll need a Serial Number in order to get your premium account, so you can get it now accessing the "manage account" section and following the instructions (you'll see a visible button to get your serial).

Thank you and stay tuned for things coming up.

Regards,

--The PrisonServer Team

(From the FAQ: Premium accounts: Allows your account to use emoticons ingame, having a PIN number to access the game / the website, and use "IP protection", useful for cibercafés or added protection).

Hello all,

We want to apologize for the problems we've experienced this last week on expired accounts. Things are corrected now and all existing accounts have received 1 month of extended free time.

We've been very busy this month due unexpected technical problems and staff-health related issues. We'll be launching the launch marketing campaign for the game and expect a lot of fun coming as the website begins to grow!

Thanks for your all your comments,

--The PrisonServer Team

We've released the Addendum: Commands in the Manual.

As we speak, important progress is being done in the rest of the website and we'll be releasing the sections as they get done.

Thank you for staying tuned.

--The PrisonServer Team

We'll be applying today a big technical patch that, as a summary and in addition to other game changes, allows to play the game in Window Mode and doing multitasking, and address issues on AMD dual processors that prevent some players to enter the game. There are fixes for a bunch of other technical fixes, and big optimizations for a better multitasking, too.

Those changes will be available once the patch is applied and you need to patch the game through the automatic updater.

We're disclosing the expected "patch news" here for you:

The patch includes:

• NEW WINDOW MODE
  
• MULTITASKING SUPPORT (ALT+TAB)
  
• PANIC KEY! (or BOSS-KEY)
  
• GAME CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS
  
• TECHNICAL FIXES AND PATCHES
  

NEW WINDOW MODE

---

The game client now has a WINDOWED mode, so you can play the game in a window on top of the Windows desktop. In this mode you can start all the game clients your computer can cope with.

--- Activating the window mode
Just go to the OPTIONS menu, tick the "Window Mode" option and restart the game (not the computer, please :).

--- Window size: its a matter of taste
The window always open with the default resolution of the game (640x480 pixels) and at the center of the screen, but it can be enlarged to any size: click and drag the bottom right corner of the window, as with any other window, and resize it to your taste.

--- Minimize the window: low energy
The window can be minimized too, so the game enters a special low energy mode. That means, the game stops processing most of the game elements, so it uses almost no CPU resources and the system can be very usable, even with many minimized clients.

--- Maximize the window: big!
You can maximize the window with the proper maximize button or by double clicking in the title bar, so it uses all the available space for the game view, looking almost as the Full Screen mode but with the whole Windows possibilities and software right at hand. Obviously, if the monitor is of wide screen format, the game will look stretched.

--- Windowed: your nick right at the title
Once you are logged into the game with one of your characters, the name of the character will be appended to the beginning of the windows title. This way it will be very easy to identify what character is running in what client when you have several clients running at once.

--- Colours colours: there must be some drawback
By now the Windows desktop must be configured for 16 bits of colour to be able to run the game windowed. This is due to the original nature of the game's engine and limitations of the DirectX system it uses. We are working on a solution to be able to run the game on top of a 32 bits Windows desktop, but meanwhile keep this in mind.



MULTITASKING SUPPORT (ALT+TAB)

---

Now the game supports ALT+TAB task switching while in Full Screen mode, so you can now go to the Windows desktop and back with no problems. Keep in mind that when you switch to Windows, the game stays minimized, so the "low energy" of the game mode is active.

--- About the power required to run several game clients:

Even as the game has been toroughly tested under a wide range of system configurations (from super-duper dual processors to simple 233MHz processors) and with several kinds of graphics cards, keep in mind that Windows, DirectX and mostly the graphics cards drivers, are not very happy at multitasking at GAMING levels. In some cases, like the old Windows 98 or with some buggy graphics card drivers, several game clients running at once are quite an achievement. Thats why you will have to test and see how can your system can go at running several clients, and in some cases you will have to try and disable some graphics options, like transparent windows and stuff, if the system can't cope with such a task.

During our tests we tested a bunch of cnfigurations, ranging from running 8 game clients with a Dual Core AMD 3800+ with an ATI x1600pro, for example, to running 2 game clients with a Pentium 2 233MHz and an old nVidia TNT2 under Windows 98. The last case required disabling several graphic options to be able to run both clients at an acceptable level. One single client ran very smooth in the later system with all options enabled, but the gfx card had a tough time with 2 clients.

Anyway, in every case, it is advised to install the latest version of your graphic card drivers, and close any background program that could slow down the system noticeably. With old and low-end graphic cards it could be necessary to run the "Graphical Configuration" from the Start menu -> Programs -> PrisonServer and then select "Low quality textures" to save some graphics memory.



PANIC KEY! (or BOSS-KEY)

---

The game has a new keyboard shortcut to hide the game completely, just in case you are playing at work and your boss is around.

--- Hiding the game
The panic shortcut is Ctrl+F9, and it will minimize and then hide completely the game window, so only a small padlock-like icon will remain at the system tray area (just beside the windows clock). The padlock icon has been chosen so no clue is given by the icon about the videogame it has running behind. You can have several "panicked" clients, so one icon for each client will be shown at the system tray. Put the mouse pointer on top of the icons to see what character is logged with every client.

--- Restoring the game
To restore the game just double-click on the icon and the game window will appear again. The icon, in fact, wont disappear. The icon is created when the game is started and can be used to bring to front the game anytime, not just when it is "panicked".



GAME CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS

---

• IMPORTANT: the shortcut for "reply to /tell" is now CONTROL+Y, due to a conflict between the Redo turn or "/redo" command keyboard shortcut and the "reply to /tell" keyboard shortcut (both were Control+R).
  
  
• Inside a fight now you can see the character info of the dead enemies that are laying dead on the floor when placing the mouse pointer on top of them.
  
  
• To be able to talk to a vendor or quester even if the NPC is surrounded by a lot of player characters, now, when there is no selected action for the mouse (attack, steal, etc) the pointer will see "through" the players, so only NPCs, doors and map elements can be selected by the mouse.
  
  
• Now you can press Control+T in combat to pass the turn (as with the /turn command, just like Control+R is the same as Redo Turn or /redo command).
  
  
• Fixed the selection areas for sitting NPCs, that were too big so anything behind them were very difficult to select, like the door behind Dallas at one of the exterior courtyards).
  
  
• Now if you invite to group another player that already has a pending group invitation to accept/deny a console message will be issued about it, instead of failing silently.
  
  
• Group invitations now have a duration of 2 minutes. After that, the invitation is automatically denied and the player is free to receive any new group invitation.
  

FIXES AND PATCHES

---

• Fixed a bug that sometimes made a character to start walking through walls if right mouse button is clicked while the character is turning to start walking to another direction. Now the character stops right where it is, as intended.
  
  
• The /help command has been expanded to give more commands and shortcuts information, and information about how to use the items filter for the inventory.
  
  
• Fixed the sign over the door to the W cellblock at the lobbies, that when seen from the north it was sunken into the wall and couldn't be seen completely.
  
  
• Fixed a problem that made some combat scenes to look "broken" and show a black background and holes in the walls and floor. It was mainly a bug in the nVidia drivers and a proper workaround has been used.
  
  
• Fixed severe timing problems with Dual Core AMD processors. It is a known problem with the Windows performance counter under real multithreading with Dual Core AMDs, that after some hours, or days, running, loses sync between the cores, so all kind of animations and timed operations of the game went completely mad.
  
  
• Fixed several textures (sun-glasses and caps) that were in the wrong format to be loaded into some graphic cards.
  
  
• Fixed a problem that caused the multi/private chat window to open at weird coordinates. Now they will always open at the center of the screen.
  
  
• Now the group list is correctly updated when people join/leave the group if the Zone list (Ctrl+2) is open.
  
  
• Stabilized the rotation of all the heads in the game, independently of the speed of the graphic card.
  
  
• Fixed a crash at the options menu when clicking on the "Default values" option.
  
  
• Fixed the TRICK message when the attacker used the fist (martial arts) for the attack.
  
  
• Fixed a visibility problem that caused that, in some circunstances, the "forbidden" and "link problems" icon at the head of other players could be seen through walls.
  
  
• Fixed the timing system to make it work with variable speed processors, like the laptop ones, that change its clock speed depending on the workload and temperature of the processor.
  

--The PrisonServer Team

TurboNEWS v1.2, 17/07/2005 10:14, escrito por SoNNy 2005