Usurper Reborn - v0.30.3 Bug Fixes & Online World Sim Fixes

Fixes NPC chat crash, missing ability descriptions, accessory quest tracking, NPC leveling, NPC polygamy, tension message spam, dead king still ruling, and marriage count on the dashboard.

Bug Fixes

• NPC chat crash (Object reference not set): Chatting with any NPC (option 1) crashed with "Error loading save: Object reference not set to an instance of an object" and kicked the player out of the game. Root cause: RestorePlayerFromSaveData() in GameEngine created new Character instead of new Player. Since Player inherits from Character, all currentPlayer as Player casts returned null, and NPCDialogueDatabase.GetPlayerContext() crashed on player.MaxHP. Fixed by creating new Player in the restore method. Added null guards in GetPlayerContext() and GetRecentMemoryType() as defense in depth.

• Accessory purchase quests never track: Buying an accessory (ring, amulet, belt) from the Magic Shop never updated equipment purchase quest objectives. The Magic Shop (MagicShopLocation.cs) was missing the QuestSystem.OnEquipmentPurchased() call entirely — only the old unused Advanced Magic Shop had it. Added the call to the Magic Shop's accessory purchase path so "Acquire: Amulet of Wisdom" and similar quests now complete when you buy the item.

• Ability/spell descriptions missing from Level Master: The combat abilities menu at the Level Master only showed ability name and stamina cost, with no description of what each ability does. Players had no way to know what abilities did before equipping them. Added ability descriptions (in gray) to all three sections: equipped quickbar slots, available abilities, and locked abilities.

• NPC XP multiplier silently rejected on online server: The --npc-xp command-line parameter had a validation cap of 2.0, but the MUD service was configured with --npc-xp 3.0. The value was silently rejected, defaulting to 0.25x (25% XP). NPCs were leveling at 1/12th the intended rate, resulting in almost all NPCs stuck at level 0-9. Raised the validation cap to 10.0 so the configured 3.0x multiplier takes effect.

• NPC polygamy bug (one-sided marriages): Monogamous NPCs could end up with multiple spouses because ExecuteNPCMarriage() didn't verify whether either NPC was already married before setting the marriage. If NPC A married NPC B, then NPC C could also marry NPC B (overwriting B's spouse to C), leaving A still listing B as their spouse — a one-sided marriage. ~12 NPCs on the live server had broken marriage states from this. Fixed by adding a validation guard at the top of ExecuteNPCMarriage(): if either NPC is already married, they must have the Polyamorous or Open Relationship preference, otherwise the marriage is aborted.

• "Tensions are rising" message spam: Tension messages between rival NPCs dominated 17% of the news feed (34 of 200 entries). Two causes: the cooldown check used ContainsKey instead of a proper time-based comparison, so expired cooldowns still blocked new messages after daily resets; and the 30-minute cooldown was too short for the number of active rivalries. Fixed by replacing ContainsKey with a TryGetValue + elapsed tick comparison, increasing the cooldown from 60 to 120 ticks (~1 hour), and adding a per-tick cap of 2 tension messages maximum so they can never dominate the feed regardless of how many rivalries exist.

• Dead king still ruling: When an NPC king died (in dungeon combat, rivalry battles, or old age), the throne was never vacated — the dead NPC stayed listed as ruler with 0 HP. No code checked whether a dying NPC was the current king. Added CheckKingDeath() to all 7 NPC death paths in the world simulator, which calls the new VacateThrone() method on CastleLocation. The throne is marked inactive, a news announcement is posted, and the world state is persisted. The next player to visit the castle will trigger NPC succession automatically (existing TriggerNPCSuccession() logic).

• Dashboard showing "Marriages: 0": The stats API marriage count query was reading from the players table (player-to-NPC relationship data), which returned 0 because no players had married NPCs. The actual NPC-to-NPC marriage data lives in the world_state table under the npcs key. Fixed the query to read NPC data from world_state, count entries with isMarried = true, and divide by 2 (since each marriage has two entries).

Files Changed