Magistream Monthly Newsletter - January 2024

[Rosehill]

Last year we launched the Magistream Monthly Newsletter, and here we are again!

The Newsletter will contain information on what we're currently working on and planning, what technical issues have been fixed and are being worked on, as well as information of upcoming events or happenings in the near future. We'll also gladly hear if you have other topics you'd like to be included in upcoming newsletters! Feel free to discuss these ideas in this very same thread.

New features and happenings since the last Newsletter:

• Magistream's 15th year started with a call to reminisce your Magistream journey, be it however long or short! viewtopic.php?t=233703 We've loved all your responses! So many memories! Keep them coming!
• January Monthly Donis and New Years creatures were released: viewtopic.php?p=23682147#p23682147 (January 1st)
• The Shimmering Shop stock changed to past January Donation Creatures (January 1st)
• A regular creature, the Yunikon was released: viewtopic.php?p=23687523#p23687523 (January 9th)
• January Midmonth Donation Pet, the Ixan Mist Stalker was released: viewtopic.php?p=23689110#p23689110 (January 15th)
• Bestiary pages of creatures now show how easy in general it is to get offspring from breeding that species. The scale goes: Guaranteed, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard. The actual breeding result is naturally still up to the randomness behind the feature, so unless an offspring is listed as "Guaranteed" it is very possible to go without getting an egg, or vice versa Very Hard breeders may seem to easily give you eggs. What is not shown on the breeding probability is that certain pairings may still have other factors built into their breeding. An example of this would be the Nandi Bear: the page lists getting a Nandi Bear egg as Normal and getting an Albino Nandi Bear egg as Normal. While the overall breeding chance of Nandi Bears producing an egg is in the "Normal" range, wether the end result is a regular Nandi Bear egg or an Albino Nandi Bear egg is determined by other factors that make getting an Albino Nandi Bear egg more unlikely than getting the Regular Nandi Bear egg.

Upcoming events and happenings:

• Regular release (late January)
• February Monthly Donation Pets (February 1st)
• The Shimmering Shop stock changes to past February Donation Creatures (February 1st)
• February Monthly Newsletter (Around February 10th)

Game things being actively worked on:

• Valentines event and related shenanigans
• Releases up to May
• Removing bot and spam accounts
• A whole new site section, or an expansion of an existing one if you want to think of it that way, is on the works

Team discussion/planning has been revolving around:

• A list of all upcoming creature releases until May has been decided and set
• A list and schedule of all upcoming site events and planned new site features until May is set in greater detail, and set until the end of the year with less detail.
• About the need to go through the FAQ and rules threads and updating them
• About do we need a starter guide and if we do, what form that would take
• What does Master Belmos look like?!
• Recent increase in lag
• Gold issues
• The sad news of one of our long time members' passing

Technical things that have been fixed:

• The Bestiary, Statistics page and Families list are now scrollable sideways making it possible to better use them also on mobile devices
• Some layout issues: creature links in click threads are now all aligned to the same base level instead of some being higher and some lower, visited creatures show up underlined with a clearer color on click threads. Especially some mobile devices will try their dang hardest to hold onto the old styling, so if you're still seeing the links unaligned or clicked links not visibly changing colors (also do note that if you use incognito mode, the links won't be changing color) do a hard refresh on your browser or clear cache (desktop), or remove cached data for the site (mobile).
• A message stating a creature is part of a lineage whose rules forbid freezing could be seen if the freezing confirmation button was double clicked. This message was modified to clarify a creature may already be frozen if that message shows up.

Technical fixes being worked on:

• Investigating the increased lag of recent days -> probable cause has been found and fixes will be tried during the Jan 20th-Jan21st weekend
• Lorien quest
• Optimizing central parts of the site's code. Once this is done it should help make things load faster and also allow for using items, embedding multiple, and adding creatures to trades from other than the main tab.
• Investigating trades issue: sometimes even when a trade goes through, the creatures aren't transferred but are instead stuck as owned by "nobody"

[sammythethief]

A whole new site section?? That's exciting! I can't wait to see what all you have planned for us. I also really like the idea of reworking the FAQ & rules, and creating a starter/newbie guide. I feel like there's been a lot of questions being asked that could be answered if people were reading through the FAQ/Rules, or if their attention could be otherwise drawn to the Support and Suggestions board.

I know we have The Beginner's Guide to MagiStream, but that's sorely outdated. More recent information may be somewhere in the thread, but no one is going to dig through 60+ pages to maybe find what they're looking for. Maybe it'd be helpful if we had a stickied thread in the Introductions board that introduces the Advisors, and each Advisor can talk about themselves, why they love MagiStream, and toot their own horns a little and say what about MagiStream they're most knowledgeable/confident about. If new members are introduced to the advisors and the purpose of that position, they may be more willing to reach out to them with questions or for assistance. I know for myself, personally, I don't like to make a public post asking for help. I'd much prefer to message someone privately and discuss what I don't know; I doubt I'm alone in this, but maybe new members aren't quite sure what the 'Advisor' role is for, if they even investigate far enough to look at 'The Team' section linked at the bottom of the forum.


Regarding the changes to the Bestiary, I did notice the difficulty tags a few weeks ago, and I'm a fan of that! I would like a little clarification on something, though.

From the Tropical Leviathan bestiary page:

Breeds with the following:
Copper Pearl Wyrm + Tropical Leviathan = Reef Leviathan (Normal)

From the Reef Leviathian bestiary page:

Obtained by breeding any of the following pairs:
Copper Pearl Wyrm and Tropical Leviathan (Hard)

If I'm interpreting correctly, the Tropical Leviathan page indicates that the chances of obtaining a Reef Leviathan is set to 'Normal' difficulty. However, the Reef Leviathan page seems to indicate that it's 'Hard' difficulty. Might be an oversight, or it might just be something my pudding cup isn't picking up on. It is, after all, a pudding cup

I have also noticed the lag that was prevalent for a while seems to be getting better in recent days. Sometimes it's still a little touch and go, but overall it's much improved, so thank you for all you've done to help that!

What does Master Belmos look like? Is he The Wizened Elder or is he the Chief Warlock of the Order of the Silver Fox?? When is his birthday? Does he like his tea with cream and sugar or plain? Is he ever going to dig himself free of the mountain of eggs I know he lives under, or do we need to send in a search and rescue team? Hatch two eggs for yes and one for no!

[Rosehill]

Maybe it'd be helpful if we had a stickied thread in the Introductions board that introduces the Advisors, and each Advisor can talk about themselves, why they love MagiStream, and toot their own horns a little and say what about MagiStream they're most knowledgeable/confident about. If new members are introduced to the advisors and the purpose of that position, they may be more willing to reach out to them with questions or for assistance.

We intend to have team groups introduced in a more detailed way in the newsletters, and also to include this info in the reworked FAQ! And for instance, the Advisors group's role is to advice the team in site and gameplay related ideas, not so to advice users. But of course our Advisors are long time members who know the ins and outs of the game, so they are very knowledgeable and able to help answer user questions as well even though that's not what the role is about.

Regarding the changes to the Bestiary, I did notice the difficulty tags a few weeks ago, and I'm a fan of that! I would like a little clarification on something, though.

From the Tropical Leviathan bestiary page:

Breeds with the following:
Copper Pearl Wyrm + Tropical Leviathan = Reef Leviathan (Normal)

From the Reef Leviathian bestiary page:

Obtained by breeding any of the following pairs:
Copper Pearl Wyrm and Tropical Leviathan (Hard)

If I'm interpreting correctly, the Tropical Leviathan page indicates that the chances of obtaining a Reef Leviathan is set to 'Normal' difficulty. However, the Reef Leviathan page seems to indicate that it's 'Hard' difficulty. Might be an oversight, or it might just be something my pudding cup isn't picking up on. It is, after all, a pudding cup

Huh. The probability of creatures producing offspring isn't separately set for display purposes on the Bestiary. It is parsed straight from the same data that dictates whether or not a breeding is successful and what it produces. I'll have to check what's going on here, because there is literally only one data point behind that information, so there should be no way it shows up differently in different places.

//Edited to add: This discrepancy has now been fixed.

[PinkStrawberries4]

Congratulations! Wow, 15 years? I sure came at a great time, then?