Improvements to the game log-in process

Today we’ve streamlined the way you get into the game. The aim is to help you get playing more quickly with fewer pages to go through every time. To start the game, simply click one of the two new buttons on the front page (depending on whether you’re a free player or a member). You will then be taken straight into the game. Once the game has loaded, you will be able to (optionally) choose both your world and detail level directly from the title screen.

More details on the changes made:

• World selection has now been moved entirely in game, so there is one less page to go through to start the game and you can get playing faster.
  
• We’ve had a world switcher in-game for a while, but since it is now the main way of choosing your world, it was time for an upgrade. The in-game world switcher now shows lots of extra information, including suggested activities for various worlds.

This is the new-look log-in screen with World Select and Detail Select highlighted.

• Automatic world selection. Just press 'Log in' on the title screen, and the game will automatically choose a suitable world for you. If you want to play on a specific world, just choose it from the world switcher first, and then press 'Log in'.
  
• Favourite worlds. The in-game world switcher now lets you select up to 2 worlds as your favourites. For example, you could set one favourite as your non-PvP homeworld and one as your PvP battle world. Once you have set up your favourite worlds from the world switcher, you will see extra buttons for them directly on the title screen, you can then click on those buttons to go straight to your favourite world.
  
• Members see less adverts. Because of the above changes, we’ve been able to remove adverts for members playing on free worlds – we hope you enjoy the change!
  
• The detail selection option has also been moved into the game. Again, this means there is one less page to go through to start the game, and gets you playing faster. This also means that you can now switch modes more easily without having to reload the game. The game will remember your last selection, so you no longer have to keep making the same choice over and over again.
  
• The 'safe mode' feature is now automatic. If your game fails to load for any reason, it will detect the failure the next time you load it, and automatically activate safe mode. If you want to force safe mode, then you can still do so by pressing the 's' key on your keyboard while the game is loading. Safe mode has also now been adjusted to only make the minimum changes needed to get the title screen to load: if you want to change any other options you should do so yourself from the 'Graphics Options' menu on the title screen before logging in. Your choices will then be remembered for next time.
  
• Unsigned mode is automatic. We’ve removed the ‘unsigned’ option from the Java options menu. Don’t worry, you can still access the unsigned applet if you need to. We’ve made the selection process for it automatic. If the game cannot load in signed mode (either because you didn’t grant it permission, or your security settings do not allow you to grant it permission) it will fall back to the unsigned version, you don’t need to do anything for this to happen.

Mod Chris E
Game Engine Developer