Release notes (2003)

Release notes help us determine any changes on Toontown Online's open and test servers. This is the release notes page for 2003.

January

January 2, 2003 [sv1.4.0]

• Fixed Toon interior with missing building take-over reward posters.
• Improved ToonTask poster and choice interfaces.
• Now you can work on "Just For Fun" optional ToonTasks while completing Gag Track Access and Gag Choice ToonTasks.
• Improved name filtering before submission to Toon Council.
• Improvements to Tug-of-war trolley game including new rope graphic and better gameplay feedback.
• Fixed bug where gag detail panel would not update number of gags while purchasing or deleting.
• Fixed bug where some ToonTasks were offering LaffPoints exceeding current 100 point limit.
• Support for international characters for chat and names.
• District population visible in Shticker Book. New artwork for Track Training page.
• Fixed bug causing Toons to get trapped on top floor of Cog Buildings after some battles.

January 10, 2003 [sv1.4.7]

• Fixed Toon interior with missing building take-over reward posters.
• Improved ToonTask poster and choice interfaces.
• Now you can work on "Just For Fun" optional ToonTasks while completing Gag Track Access and Gag Choice ToonTasks.
• Improved name filtering before submission to Toon Council.
• Improvements to Tug-of-war trolley game including new rope graphic and better gameplay feedback.
• Fixed bug where gag detail panel would not update number of gags while purchasing or deleting.
• Fixed bug where some ToonTasks were offering LaffPoints exceeding current 100 point limit.
• Support for international characters for chat and names.
• District population visible in Shticker Book.
• New artwork for Track Training page.
• Fixed bug causing Toons to get trapped on top floor of Cog Buildings after some battles.
• Allowed some names being incorrectly filtered through auto-disapproval rules.
• Improved ActiveX Version checking.

January 28, 2003 [sv1.4.11]

• ActiveX control is now downloaded from a versioned directory to prevent old versions from being cached improperly.
• Population page layout has been cleaned up.
• Fixed error with ToonTask posters always displaying Final Track Training reward as Toon-Up when you were training a different Gag Track.

February

February 11, 2003 [sv1.4.13]

• Valentine's Day Decorations. All playground healing treasures are double value to celebrate Valentine's Day!

February 20, 2003 [sv1.4.14]

• Coming Soon and Backstage areas released. Valentine's Day decorations removed.

March

March 20, 2003 [sv1.4.17]

• Released Cog Invasions and Toon Leaderboards! See Coming Soon Issue #1 for more details. Fixed several server crashes.

March 25, 2003 [sv1.4.17]

• Send a Toontown Postcard to a friend!

April

April 10, 2003 [sv1.4.18]

• New server hardware.

April 24, 2003 [sv1.5.10]

• The Catching Game is now released. Have fun!
• We have gotten a few complaints about Toons griefing other players by hopping off Cog elevators at the last second, thus stranding poor Toons left to fight the building alone. Now when a Toon jumps off a Cog elevator, the timer will be reset. It will only be reset the first time this happens on each elevator.
• Smoother Toon-on-wall corner collisions.
• Fixed Shticker Book Map Page location description while in Toon-torial.
• Fixed intermittent crash when trying to purchase from Shticker Book.
• Added volume attenuation on many sounds in Toontown. Now if a door is opened far away, the sound will be softer.
• Adjusted music and sound effect volume mix. Music volume overall is now slightly lower.
• New low-level 3D window handling code.
• New window management interface in Shticker Book.
• New popup help to get on trolley and complete first ToonTask at Toon HQ after Toontorial for a smoother transition into the game for new players.
• Sleeping Toons get logged off after 10 minutes.
• Improved LaffMeter handling on Toon Detail Panel.
• Smaller friend request windows.
• New option in Shticker Book to ignore friend requests.
• Fixed several server crashes.

May

May 20, 2003 [sv1.0.6.2]

• An early version of Toon housing is live. We will be releasing more housing features over the next few weeks. This first release includes closets and banking. To get to your house, use the new "Go Home" button on the Map Page in the Shticker Book.
• Closets: Now you can store your extra clothes in your very own closet in your house. When you purchase new clothes with a clothing ticket, your old clothes will automatically be sent back to your closet.
• Banking: Now you can store extra jellybeans in your bank at your house. Extra jellybeans earned in Trolley Games and from ToonTasks will spill-over into your bank. You can deposit and withdraw from your bank at your house.
• Updated battle menu scene layout. Now it should be easier to see chat during battles with less clutter.
• Ring Game and Maze Game now have difficulty levels per neighborhood. Now playing these games in Toontown Central will be easier, but more advanced neighborhoods like Dreamland have gotten even harder. We plan to add difficulty levels to more Trolley Games in the future, and scale the jellybean reward based on difficulty.
• Speedchat has 2 new housing phrases.
• Fixed problem where emotions stopped working after some battles.

June

June 2, 2003 [sv1.0.6.4]

• Public release!
• More details to check out inside houses.
• A Brand New Toontown logo.
• New Web/cookie based login that remembers you for a short while.
• You can now do some fishing in the Estates while butterflies fly around.

June 12, 2003 [sv1.0.6.6]

• New connection method that seems to eliminate the 0-timer bug.
• Estate closet tweaked to better handle trying on different gender clothing.
• Toon shouldn't get credit for an invasion if s/he switches districts during.
• Battle sounds attenuate depending on distance and direction/location of the sound from the player's toon.

June 17, 2003 [sv1.0.6.6c]

• Launching Toontown modified to work around some non-standard web proxy servers.
• The Logout link is presented in bold red to catch your attention now.

June 25, 2003 [sv1.0.6.7]

• The fishing related crash where you left the estates with somebody fishing on your estate is fixed.
• Fixed the bug where you could get sucked into a empty battle that has already finished.
• The rare crash after the tutorial when the trolley panel pops up which tells you to "Go get on a trolley" is fixed.
• Proxy server support has changed to work around certain problems. It should work better for everybody now.
• Estate closets properly handle being full now.

July

July 1, 2003 [sv1.0.6.9]

• The ActiveX control is now signed by Buena Vista Internet Group. Yes, that is still us. :)
• Some "special" events are scheduled for Toontown Central and other playgrounds. Keep your Toons' eyes peeled for them.
• The view a Toon sees when looking up into the sky has changed, and allows a Toon to spin around while admiring the sky.
• A bug with Toons' emotes turning off entirely instead of just stopping is patched.

July 22, 2003 [sv1.0.6.10]

• The game crashing when the Trolley quest panel pops up should be fixed for everybody now.

August

August 7, 2003 [sv1.0.6.12]

• The ActiveX control signing has changed once again to "Walt Disney Co." now.
• Many miscellaneous bugs have been fixed including a crash bug during fishing, and "status code = 416" during downloading.

August 15, 2003

• One of the duplicate Crazywoods districts has been renamed to Crazywick.

August 19, 2003 [sv1.0.6.16]

• New Welcome Valley district. Welcome Valley is a special virtual district that is made up of multiple sub-districts, each of which includes only the Toontown Central neighborhood. Newly created Toons are placed first in Welcome Valley until they leave by their own action.
• Number of available districts reduced down to 16 (not counting Welcome Valley).

August 26, 2003 [sv1.0.7.12]

• NEW: Clarabelle's Cattlelog. Now you can purchase furniture, clothing, new SpeedChat phrases, and much more from Clarabelle's Cattlelog. Just give her a ring from the new phone in your house and place an order. Check our new Cattlelog FAQ for more information
• NEW: Estate Decoration. Rearrange your furniture, put up new wallpaper, and change out that old flooring! Decorate and redecorate with items purchased from the Cattlelog.
• NEW: Elder Toontasks. Help a new Toon defeat Cogs and earn valuable jellybeans.
• NEW: Color customize the SpeedChat. Choose your favorite color from the Options Page in the Shticker Book.
• NEW: Informative Toon Tips during Toontown loading screens.
• NEW: Higher jellybean rewards on ToonTasks. Start saving those beans for shopping in the Cattlelog.

Other changes:

• Toons now sit on the trolley.
• Added in more Toontown Central teleport-in points.
• Fixed resuming partial download through proxy.
• Improved interface for deleting clothes from your closet.
• Added a dialog to certain quests that explains you can buy the needed gag in the 'Gag Shop' once you have earned access.
• Fixed incorrect reporting of per-gag skill credit in some obscure cases.
• Allow just-for-fun effects earned in ToonTasks to be visible while at your estate.
• New animations when you interact with your jellybean jar.
• Neighborhood based minigame scoring - earn more beans in more difficult neighborhoods.
• Fixed a rare crash when walking through doors at estate.
• Many other minor bugs fixed.

September

September 16, 2003 [sv1.0.7.16]

• Clarabelle now has a special popup to let you know when there's new items in the catalog.
• Catalogs now let you choose a certain color for a wallpaper, or flooring design in one sitting.
• AT&T game card chat permission handling.
• Engine doesn't assume the existence of a stencil buffer in DX8 anymore. This should fix issues with graphics cards such as the Kryo PowerVR.
• Exiting Toontown would crash just after playing certain minigames fixed.
• There was an under-reporting of Apprentice task credit when multiple new toons are in battle that is fixed.
• Fixed left-over laff meter after turning in finished Apprentice ToonTask.
• Fixed crash when entering house with closet close to doorway.
• Fixed crash when entering house with somebody at bank inside.
• Minor bug with Tug of war game fixed.
• Estates have been debugged of Butterflies temporarily.

October

October 7, 2003 [sv1.0.7.18]

• Special items for the month of October to show up soon!
• A Toon is not trapped by the Estate closet, or phone, against the door or wall anymore.
• A crash while playing the Ring Game minigame is fixed.
• An Toon's animation getting stuck after a trap is fixed.

October 21, 2003 [sv1.0.7.20]

• More fixes implemented for the loss of emotion problem.
• Errors getting to the parent password page in LeaveToPay if you installed from a CD fixed.

November

November 14, 2003 [sv1.0.8.6]

• Fishing
• New fishing system and interface integrated. Here are the basics:
  • You can now catch fish in the ponds located in every playground and street in Toontown. As you fish at a pond, your new fishing bucket will fill up with the fish you catch. When your bucket is full, or if you run out of Jellybeans, you need to sell the fish to the Pet Shop Clerks located near the ponds in the Playgrounds.
  • Fish that are heavier and more rare are worth more Jellybeans. There are 50 total fish species. Some fish have particular ponds where they live, others can be found in every pond.
  • Your fishing rod can be upgraded by purchasing stronger rods sold in Clarabelle's Cattlelog. Better rods are stronger and can catch heavier fish, but cost more Jellybeans to fish with. Everytoon intially has the "twig" fishing rod.
  • Each 10 fish species you collect will earn you a fishing trophy and +1 Laff Boost, bringing the maximum Laff points up to 105. You can keep track of the fish you have seen and the trophies you have with a new page in your Shticker Book.

Other Changes

• Fixed bug where tutorial battle would time-out and cause client crash.
• Fixed server crash when playing Tag minigame.

November 18, 2003 [sv1.0.8.8]

• Game crash while you were in the tutorial and the game was still downloading is fixed now.
• Some server crashes have been fixed.
• Error codes better diagnose firewall issues now.

November 24, 2003 [sv1.0.8.11]

• Keep an eye peeled for Cattlelog series 2!
• Badly placed teleport spot in Minnie's Playground fixed.
• New sound effects on emotions and events, as well as MIDI file fixes for notes getting "stuck on".
• Problems with Toons sleeping during battle fixed.
• New ActiveX control.
• If you are away from Toontown for several weeks, your next Cattlelog will not skip ahead to catch up when you come back and login again. Instead, you will receive the next Cattlelog in line so you do not miss anything. For example, if you have received Issue #2, then the next issue you will get after not logging in for a few weeks will be Issue 3.

December

December 3, 2003 [sv1.0.8.12]

• Rolled back to original MIDI files to fix grey-screen freeze on some Windows 98 computers.
• Fixed Name-Your-Toon crash when submitting a name for approval on high-latency connections.
• Fixed crash when fishing at an estate when the owner leaves.

December 19, 2003 [sv1.0.9.12]

• Welcome to Cog Headquarters (CogHQ)!
• Sellbot HQ, attached to Daisy Gardens is the first Cog HQ to be released. It has been very exciting for us to develop this new area of Toontown, and hopefully it is as fun for you to play in. Cog HQ introduces new physics, environments, enemies, story elements, and game play.
• A Brief CogHQ Overview
  • Toons have been taken hostage by the Cogs! They are being held on the top floor of CogHQ. It is your mission to gang up and rescue them. Getting into CogHQ will not be easy though; their tight security will detect and reject any Toons that enter. You must build a Cog disguise first by recovering Cog parts from their factory. The factory is a 4-player environment with many new game-play elements. You can keep track of your Cog disguise progress with a new page in your Shticker Book.
  • Once you have your entire Cog disguise built you can enter the Cog HQ lobby dressed as a Cog. The Sellbot Boss is a very busy Cog, so the guard will not allow you to see the Boss unless you have important Cog business, such as needing a promotion. You must earn your promotion by fighting Sellbots to collect "merits" around Toontown. Merits are given out after every battle just like Gag experience and are recorded in your Shticker Book as well. The elevator to the top of Cog HQ holds 8 players so when you are ready for your promotion, group up with your friends and head up to battle the Boss.
  • If you defeat the Sellbot Boss Cog you will free the hostage Toon who will in turn present you with his "trading card". You can use these cards in battle to call on them for extra assistance in a tough spot. Of course, knowing the Cogs they will quickly build another Sellbot Boss Cog, so hurry and get your next promotion to rescue another Toon. There are 40 total promotions as you work your way up the corporate ladder.
• Summary of What is New
  • New Physics with jumping ability - now you can hurdle bushes, jump onto crates, and hop over small fences!
  • New Toon interactions - conveyor belts, stompers, gears, locked doors, switches, pushable crates, platform action.
  • New Gag, Laff, and Jellybean Barrels - Cogs have stockpiled all the Toon items they have stolen. You can recover them in the factory.
  • New Cog Factory environment
  • New Cog Boss enemy
  • New Pie throwing mode in final phase of Boss Battle
  • New Cog HQ environment
  • New Rescued Toons (SOS) system
  • New Rescued Toon Shticker Book page holds up to 8 Toon cards
  • New Rescued Toon battle interface
  • New Cog Disguise Shticker Book page
  • New Cog Merit system with 40 promotion levels
  • New "Skelecogs" - Sellbots that do not have their final Cog suit built
  • New "Goons" - Cog worker drones
  • New street - "Oak Street" off Daisy Gardens playground
  • New map artwork
  • New Shticker Book tabs make finding pages faster and easier

December 23, 2003 [sv1.0.9.12] release 2

• Crashes with the stompers and crushers in the Factory fixed.
• Crash while in your Estate also fixed.
• Problems with doors getting stuck locked in the Factory fixed.

December 31, 2003 [sv1.0.9.18]

• Fixed more potentially troublesome midi files in Sellbot VP battle.
• Connection issues fixed, and better cleanup when fishing.
• New Holiday fireworks.
• Fixed the Cog Disguise reward panel that showed you getting somebody else's parts.