Patch 0.78: your WyrmRail writing ranks you up

Okay! Here's everything new since 0.75b, all in one go.

New: your WyrmRail writing ranks up your Synth account

This one just fits. Everything you write in WyrmRail now earns XP for your Synth.pub account: the same XP and the same ranks as graded chapters, right there beside your name everywhere on the site. And it's about how much you actually WRITE, not what you publish.

• 10 XP for every 100 of your own words in a turn, a little more for a better grade (and a little less for a rough one).
• You'll see it under each turn, like "+12 writer XP", plus a little card when you rank up.
• Everything you've already written counts! All your past turns were counted once, so if you've been playing a while, go check your rank. You might have jumped a few.
• Ideas you pick from the table don't count, since those aren't your words.
• After 5,000 words in a single day it slows to half, so it stays fair and nobody can just grind it out.
• The FAQ has a new "How do I rank up?" if you want the whole picture.

The big sweep

Before we go any further with the new look for the world (I've been working on it behind the scenes, more when it's ready!), I wanted the whole site and the whole game gone over top to bottom. So that's what this was: a full sweep, on top of the usual one. Every part got checked, and a lot got fixed.

Security: 23 fixes: 9 for privacy, 4 for accounts and access, 2 for page safety, 4 limits against misuse, 1 for network safety and 3 for server hardening. I'm keeping the details to myself on purpose.

Better

• Thefts are capped: at most two tries a world day, and what you take comes out of what that person actually carries. Empty pockets, nothing to steal!
• Companion bonds grow from real meetings, ones where you actually played a turn together. Same for the journey counts your titles read.
• The first stop makes sense now. It tells you that you can't die there, Hesper shows as "with you for the first stop" (she joined, she wasn't hired!), and you can't wander off before her goodbye.
• If you run out of tokens right after a turn is graded, the Weaver still writes that turn. And if she ever fails to write one, your words stay in the story with a short note.
• Connected your own AI? The editor keeps working when the weekly allowance runs out, like the FAQ always said. (WyrmRail and the Prose Deity always run on Synth's own AI, and the FAQ now says so clearly.)
• Moving up from Pro to Max partway through a month? What you hadn't used of Pro that month comes with you now, until the 1st.
• Long chapters' films load way faster, and so do Browse and the forum.

Fixed

• The token card and the editor's meter were counting a $2 top-up twice. Fixed! And the plans page no longer tells Free players their tokens roll over (they're fresh each Monday).
• The 300-word limit can't be dodged by gluing words together with dots, and a turn written as hundreds of tiny sentences no longer makes a ten-minute film that freezes the page.
• The fight window draws its picture in your second and later fights, and when it's tucked away it doesn't play sound with no picture anymore.
• Saving a chapter as a video checks its real length, instead of quietly cutting off the end.
• Devlog replies reach the person you replied to, comment counts match what you see, and trial writers can read the devlog too.
• The forum's stats box shows real numbers instead of zeros, and really long words no longer push pages sideways on your phone.
• Under the hood: steadier saving when you do two things at once or lots of you are playing, and the Weaver starts answering a little sooner.

The Terms

A small update you'll be asked to click through once: if a plan's charge is refunded or disputed (even a small one), the plan ends right away, and moving up from Pro to Max keeps what you hadn't used. Top-up refunds never end a plan.

Skills are CARDS now

No more highlighting words to use a skill. You play a card, and that skill powers your whole turn. I've wanted this for a while, because highlighting on a phone was rough (honestly, it wasn't great on a computer either).

• Skill cards. Tap + skill cards under the writing box, then tap a card. That skill powers your WHOLE turn. A little chip under the box shows what's played, and ✕ takes it off.
• On a computer you can drag a card straight onto your words, if that feels better than tapping.
• One card at a time, and playing another card swaps it in. Rare gear lets you play two, Legendary three.
• ↺ again. After a turn your cards come off, and one tap puts the same ones back. Great for a fight where you keep swinging the same sword.
• Fighting a group? Every card you play gets its own Point, Arc, Line and Burst row, so you choose how far each skill reaches.
• Your words have to actually use the card. A healing card on a sword swing doesn't heal anybody anymore! If the Weaver sees your words didn't use a card, that card does nothing that turn and teaches nothing, and your turn card tells you why. When it's close, it counts. And it never lowers your grade.
• Two cards at once both count, even when one of them is a skill you're still learning.
• Gear skills play as real cards. A skill you only have from something you're wearing strikes as trained, at full strength. (You still have to learn it for real to grow it.)
• When two cards both bring a shape, your turn card tells you whose shape shaped the strike.
• The word counter and the game agree on every word now. The cards aren't counted as your words.
• The films read what you wrote, plainly, with your card's skill. And a card your words didn't use never shows up in the film.
• How to Play is updated for the cards.

I'm still tuning how strict the Weaver is about "using" a card, so tell me how it feels!

Thank you all for playing and for every bug report. Every bug caught is somebody having a better time. See you on the rail!