News

IfThen Software LLC's project which is code-named "Loradon 3.0" has finally been unveiled as Volund!

Volund Screenshots:

This marks the start of the closed beta for the Volund Preview. Closed beta will last for at least two weeks, at which point we will release the Volund Preview to the public.

We have released the Volund website, which is located at http://www.volundgame.com. Volund also has a Facebook page located at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Volund/294832706108 so be sure to become a fan!

A new article titled "From the Testers" has been added to the newsletter. This article will contain information on what is happening in the Volund Preview closed beta, along with a screenshot taken while testing.

This issue also introduces a new article titled "Funny Quote of the Week" which we will include in the newsletter as quotes become available. These quotes are taken from our community, and could be from our online chat, forums, or the chat from any of our online games.

From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I can safely say that I am not interested in working on another web site for a while. We had already created a site for Volund about 2 years ago, but it wasn't finished and needed to be redesigned. It was fun, but this isn't my main line of work and I will be happy to return to the comfort of MSVC++ and my engine.

Firefox seems to change the brightness of images automatically, which was making both of our recent websites look a little strange. If you go to about:config and set gfx.color_management.mode to 0, the problem should go away.

Unfortunately, I could not get the registration system to refill the form after returning to it from the EULA page. I tried various things, such as setting up a hidden form on the EULA page and turning the back button into a submit button, but there was always something crucial wrong with my plan. I suppose this comes from not working in the field very often, which means my bag-o-tricks is somewhat small.

I am rather proud of the way the screenshot viewer turned out. It was one of our last minute decisions, but really enhanced the website. You are shown the screenshot description at the bottom, and you are given previous and next screenshot buttons which allow you to easily scan through all of them. The page will also automatically scroll down to show as much of the screenshot as possible.

If you are getting error 500 from your web server after making a change to your htaccess file, make sure that it is using consistent line endings. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out why a perfectly legal change to the htaccess file was bugging the web server, and finally got it to work after telling Notepad++ to convert the file to UNIX format.

Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #18

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Community Spotlight
Written by InvaderKED

"Loradon 3.0"'s real name has been revealed! After about a year, the staff found and decided on giving it this name. On February 7th, 2010 InvisibleMan unveiled its name as Volund! This name means "Battle Brave" in the language of the Old Norse. Right now it is in closed beta of the Preview, in which the level cap has been set to three. The crew of beta testers consists of Acaceol, Chilincheese, Giygas, GreyKnight, InvisibleMan, Jay, KingSpore, pifreak, Rector, Roarman, and TekkenIronFist. From the screenshots at www.volundgame.com that I've seen, this game looks absolutely amazing. There has not been an official release date for this preview yet, but hopefully we get to experience it soon!

From the Testers
Written by Acaceol, Jay, and pifreak

(Click to enlarge)

Teaming up against a tough monster.

Volund so far is shaping up to be a really nice game; it's very fun to play and to work with. There are a few bugs (no, not those types of bugs, SAO fans), but most of them (if not all of them) will be fixed before the release. This is as expected, though, since it has not been intensively tested until now. Because of the loot system and the different methods of play, the game itself is very addicting even when nobody else is on. It should be really fun when everyone's playing, but even with this small amount of players it's a really great game. Testing the Volund Preview has been interesting and it is a great privilege. I'm looking forward to PKing everyone else soon too. :D

See you in the woods,
Ace, Jay and pi

Funny Quote of the Week
Acaceol

Acaceol was playing the game and found a bug that duplicates items. The following is Acaceol's response to the programmer's request for a detailed description of the bug.

--How to Duplicate Items on Volund--
--An Informative Guide--

THINGS NEEDED:
Two (2) Persons
Two (2) Items of the Same Kind, one with Magikal Properties
For Example: Linen Coif and Dexterous Linen Coif of Brute Force
(these being the items that I used)
Any (?) Number of Items Which be Pleasing to Have More Of

PREPARATION:
Make thee sure that the First Person has the Aforementioned Unmagikal Item Equipped
Make thee sure that the Second Person has All Other Items

PROCEDURE:
1) Start a Trade with either Persons
2) Put thee All the Items into thou Trade Window
3) Accepteth thou Trade with thou First Person, this thee must do first
4) Accepteth thou Trade with thou Second Person
5) Take Off thou Unmagikal Item from thou First Person
6) Pick Up thou Magikal Item with thou First Person
7) Thou First Person shalt be Disconnected
8) Connect thou First Person
9) Thou shalt have Two of every Items Which be Pleasing to Have More Of
10) Thou shalt be Holding the Magikal item