Big Optimisation and Efficiency Updates!

You may have noticed our last few updates have been small and ignoring the elephant in the room of the server lag. While we've brought some fantastic new stuff, we've mostly been focusing our attention on converting the majority of our user data code among other things. The past 4 weeks have seen us coders working on almost every file on the game (over 200!) to try and fix the lag issues we've been having for the past few months. This update was due to be released last week, but unfortunately it wasn't really finished in time and a bunch of bugs were uncovered, so instead of rushing this update out, we decided to postpone. So here we are now - let's go through all the changes that you'll notice, and some that you won't notice.

New Rollover System
We now have a fancy new rollover system which will be much less lag-inducing. When you hit the rollover button, a job is scheduled in the background. It runs through all of the aging of lions, rotting of items, expiring of old trades, etc. Instead of the old system where you had to wait on the page for your rollover to complete, it is now all done in the background. This means you can move around or leave the site while it's running. If you refresh the page and it's not done yet, you'll continue to see the loading bar.

New Energy System
We have a shiny new energy system - it is now much more fluid and flexible, as well as being a lot less server intensive. Instead of being rigidly updated at :00, :15, :30 and :45, the new energy system works like this:

You perform an action that uses energy!
- An energy refill "tick" is scheduled to run in 15 minutes after performing this action. This will run in the background.
- If your energy is still below 100% when the "tick" runs, it schedules another "tick" for 15 minutes later.
- If your energy is already at 100% when the "tick" runs, nothing happens and no more ticks are scheduled until the next time you use energy.

User Data Changes
This is the biggest update, and the one that took the longest - but also the update that you (hopefully) won't notice. Any time your user data changes (you lose or gain money, you change your profile, you go exploring, you use items, etc) the data sent to the server is now handled in a much more efficient manner. We expect that this will make the biggest impact on general server lag (not counting morning rollover time).

Will the lag be fixed immediately?
Unfortunately not. There will be a period of time where all user data will need to be stored in the new system, so for the first 24-36 hours there will still be lag. By Sunday, everything *should* be relatively smooth, but there may be some patches of time where pages load slowly where it's all catching up.

Other Updates!
* All sidebar headers (apart from chat box) are now clickable and will take you directly to their relevant pages.
* Infertile lionesses can no longer be bred to unless they have a Chasteberry or Vuka Vuka applied to them.
* Any 404 errors or missing pages related to trying to get to a lion's page should now be fixed.

POST-NEWS EDIT

Chameleon Skin had 1 use for 2 GB and that didn't feel fair. It has now 5 uses by default and everyone who bought the 1 use version had the uses refunded.

Remember that the event ends on March 31st at 11:59 pm, and all your currency will be stored in your account until next year. April 1st is coming! :O

Raffle Lioness
Congrats Mondli (#97394)! You have won the last raffle lady!
New lady with the Rainforest BG is up for impressing in Special Lioness area in Explore or in NEWS section under News Post List!

Polls and dev notes
New poll LINK - Zombie Decors were the very first event decor I ever drew on Lioden. It's been 4 years and I can see how much the art style on Lioden changed since. Do you think they look outdated and should be redone? Vote please! (some of you voted already when I tried to run this poll last week so don't worry if you can't vote again ;D)