April 2008
1 post
I'm writing my first essay in 15 years ...
Not since the HSC in 1992 have I had to write 800 words on something in essay format, you know - intro, body, conclusion. Surprisingly fun but mostly frustrating. I’m not a natural arguer - the only thing that comes naturally to me is sarcasm I think.
March 2008
5 posts
EUO's 5th birthday is on April 3
“5th Birthday” as in - 5 years live. It will be 10 years in August since I started it all … Spent something like 5-8 hrs making newbie island, because maybe 1 in 10 people who try euo get past the first 5 mins. Is it really that hard? Well newbie island has many obnoxious popups telling you how to attack and whatnot …
V & T
rock on
killing time, something you shouldn't be doing at...
2 hrs to kill at COFA - 1 hr and 15 min to go. I’m in the computer lab, and not only forced to use a mac, but furryfox refuses to load. What a travesty. Checked out the library as suggested by the lovely Cecelia - lots of art books of course but it was all about as appealing as the Chester Hill library, as far as a place to kill time in goes. Many interesting videos and and a few dvds - but...
tumblr's days are numbered ...
now that I figured out that the best bit about it was written by someone else: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com true democratisation is writing your own goddamn “blog software” (using someone else’s wysiwyg javascript textareas of course) the NY web2.0 circle jerk can stay on with fucking tumblr and die of old age while they wait for their tags - not me, I’m going to ART SCHOOL...
since Feb 26th ...
euo threat based targeting - ie mobs preferencing their atacks towards the most dangerous players (and pets of course) after many years, got CTF automatically running with 4 maps rotating! got a prototype automated paypal-integrated in game purchasables system running (not live yet, still thinking about Adamantium Coins) return of the scoreboard for reg - improved with top 100 and popup player...
February 2008
19 posts
1 tag
gotta post here too
just spent all nite writing on the forum about bugs fixed and also updating the euo manual Latest Changes section, read it, it’s awesome : LINK
fov again
About 5 hours encoding the numbers in FOV packets into chars and converting the flags into bits and such - got pkts down to about 65% of their orig size. Has taken much debugging to get the base-222 converter working. I hate signed & unsigned ints in C.
blogging
so much to do … can’t concentrate on anything … stinky webdev taking up too much time … where the fuck are my tags tumblr - I’m growing impatient …
probably have to do webdev all day tomorrow, what...
Maybe a good idea to give EUO a rest for a day or two anyway, I’ve been going so flat out on it …
finished network optimisation (mostly)
All day today and yesterday continuing to trim down FOV and other network traffic. Pleased with results. Few bugs of course but nothing that can’t be fixed. And still a few improvements to make but I’m pretty sure there is at least 3-5x less traffic now, maybe more.
network optimisation (or something)
Yesterday I redid packet encryption to be a little less bulky and a little less injectable (keeping details to myself of course) Today I spent all day working on Field of View (Fov) updates - ie trying to have less of them as they use so much bandwidth. And I’m not done yet. Just optimised player movements but still need to strip down monster movement, combat & maybe magic and a few...
euo all day
Spent hours and hours perfecting shared xp. Next cab of the rank is optimised FOV as discussed with George. Now that is going to be a pain in the ass - think about it tomorrow.
3ds max 9
Spent all day grinding tutes out of a book and it was fine. When it came to doing a skull / skeleton for euo failed dismally.
working on euo
finally did some work. Knuckled down and figured out a formula for diminishing returns on stats so I could scrap the level cap on reg. God bless Excel. Fixed like 2 bugs, but both were kinda important. Also worked on the euo home page account sign up thingy - fucking hotmail, I don’t think there is anyway to send someone an email from php to their hotmail account and not have it land in the...
just finished Snow Crash and now I'm BLOGGING...
Maybe I’ll also finish Lord Jim this year *roll eyes* …
totally unproductive
not depressed or anything, just very sluggish. Barely cleaned up downloads directory. Only good things done are more EUO events but someone else has been doing that (I’m just the code checker). Did a tiny bit more of the new game but it’s a struggle. Want to get 50 ppl playing EUO on it’s 5th birthday on April 3. Have to spam some blogs or RPG news sites or something. Promo promo...
testing strategy games
ie: stealing ideas, seeing how the other guy does it …
night
Spent all arvo webdevving (can’t post link as it is TOP SECRET) for a guy who is really good for paying, as opposed to the usual freeloaders who drag jobs out for months and years. Spent a bit of time updating the EUO DM guide, a word doc, but will merge it into the web page. I kind of like the idea of a static document though, but even plain HTML would be better than word. Conceptually...
morning
Am now automatically archiving all my tumblr posts into my own database - see the archive. Eventually may just use tumblr as the wysiwyg while swut.net runs off it’s own database populated every now and then by tumblr. Really looking fwd to tumblr adding tags already. Spent the rest of the morning helping Tyler with his EUO shit, and will probably spend some time after lunch doing web dev,...
need to give 3d a rest for a couple of days
Today I finished a first draft of a gremlin. Figured out why qtip exporter wasn’t working. Also found out why after all this time my exported mirrored objects were inside out. Had to fiddle with my md2 importer to work with qtip’s md2 (so now I am using 2 types of md2, one from qtip, one from Adam Barton. Tried to rejig the latter’s max script to export multi-objects but failed...
got a working md2 importer for moagl
Using a md2 exporter for 3ds max from a game called UFO:Alien Invasion, and using this tute+src code for importing md2’s found here, and after about 2-3 hrs of dicking around getting stuff like getting the model to not draw inside out and having the uv-mapping upside down, I can gladly report that moagl now uses md2’s for animated critters. There was one critical speed hump though: not...
worked all day and got NOWHERE
Wanted to fix 2 problems: models in 3ds format have wrong translation (ie not centered at origin) some objects in models when flipped don’t retain flipping First tried to upgrade my 3ds “library” but turned out to be a red herring. Then tried to debug it … spent all day trying to fix problem #1, barking up many different trees but have gotten nowhere. I’ll probably...
first animated critter for euo3d
I wanted to do a proof of concept 3d monster, with only 4 frames of animation, just like the 2d sprite. Discovered that I now need to add monster looking directions in - they always look south!
January 2008
14 posts
frustrating day
The only good work done was a bit of the 3d gazer, but I did finish enough euo-mail back end (ie mysql and moasv C) to have items automatically mailed to players. This way I can automate res stone and avatar sales, among other things. Started reading about rejigging the paypal shit to make it work, but payments integration is such a drag. Back on euo-mail, will later on get in-game player to...
virtual mail
Must put a mail system into EUO as a precursor to adamantium coins. Database is designed, and that is always the first and most terrible step.
more 3d euo
Got thinking again about converting moagl/euo entirely to 3d - ie 3d players, mobs and items. Wasted a lot of time looking for a chm/pdf of Paul Steed’s book Modelling a Character in 3ds Max. Went to Dymocks and bought 3ds Max at a Glance and The Computer Game Design Course (because it covered a lot of ground with a lot of pictures, probably a total waste of money). Spent a few hours making...
reading Snow Crash has made me start dicking around in Second Life again … though problems with bandwidth and gfx card drivers causing pain in ass
afternoon
webdev (2hrs) and housework
morning
time consuming admin (ringing tax office, aapt, unsw) worked on euo server install document got eyes tested, no problems except possibly high cholesterol and slightly longsighted
Finished php xml tumblr passer, you’re seeing the results of this work now. Doesn’t do quotes, video, pics, convos yet. Worry about those bridges when we come to them. Handy reference: http://demo.tumblr.com/api/read
8-9am
Started writing a xml parser for tumblr … realised that my javascript embedded miniblog in swut.net is no good as it is not search engine readable, so have decided to do it all server side. What a drag. Emailed tumblr support yesterday about when they might put access to tags in. Got a PR laden syrupy reply but no real answer.
updated moagl to 0.12
completed shaded lighting optimisations - not drawing walls inside walls for example, but this needs a full rewrite at the map level - however it is better than nothing right now fixed flashing opening screen removed some code wasting cpu - managed to get 2-3x fps on my desktop, no change to laptop tho (it’s 3d is very poor)
wordpress is a bloated buggy piece of shit
I’m sick of updating it so I ganked it off.
Spent the morning getting tumblr embedded into home page. Still need to make it work with pics, video etc. Need posts to be grouped by date. Work on it some more later.
1 tag
euo / moa
worked on moagl lighting got tyler using euo dev server to work on Maeondir thought about what game to write next
1 tag
things done today other than euo
looked for micro blogging sites read some Snow Crash forgot UNSW unipass twanged with CH
1 tag
moagl update 0.11
spent most of the day debugging / improving moagl + posted patch
1 tag
moagl released →