Nothing But Rants

It has been getting really hard to write about anything except things I'm not happy about lately. School has been stressful (I haven't even been back to classes yet and I'm already about at the edge of what I can take) and anything else that can find a way to not work does. I think my video card is on it's last legs, it has progressed to artifacts whenever I boot it up, apparently just displaying the scrolling linux boot up text is too much to handle. Fortunately it seems to resolve itself by the time it finishes booting, for now. I guess when I'm pinched for time its hard to write about new ideas and features that don't exist yet. I'm going to try and change that, but I am going to warn that the general trend seems to be that I won't have time to write every day like I did about a month ago. Anyway, back to the grind.

-Toraux

Tags: Engineering, College, Game, Games, MUDS, Multi User Dungeon, Online Games, Game Design, Programming

Multimedia on Websites

This is mainly a rant... so be prepared. While web surfing a bit today between homework, studying, etc I came across a website discussing some new MMO. Unfortunately for me the website all but 'required' IE 5.0. I run linux most of the time, so rebooting to view one website isn't on my list of things to do. To my further disappointment, to view with firefox I needed to download some plugin, I think it was for flash or shockwave... something to that order. Screw that. Personally I don't think its good practice to require any sort of spiffy technology to visit a website. Especially a commercial one. If you at least leave a simple version for users then the low bandwidth, low tech customers can still get access. I remember when most sites had frames or no frames options.... why not flash and no flash these days? If your website uses multimedia, and does something like this then I applaud you. If you don't, you won't get my money, or traffic. I think this is especially important for game sites in this genre. People who play MUDs and other online text games generally are looking for the low tech, low bandwidth alternative. Why pair a text game with a flash website if thats the only option? I remember visiting an paid for ad once to find this kind of situation... needless to say I didn't get past the front page to the site, and their money went down the tubes. All I'm really saying is.... give users low tech options whenever possible. If not, you loose customers and viewers.

-Toraux

Tags: Game, Games, MUDS, Multi User Dungeon, Online Games, Game Design, Programming

Sun Microsystems Needs Better Documentation

So last night I was messing around with some of my code, I decided to load up my Java into a jar and give it a try outside of eclipse. Of course my normal classpath setting wouldn't make Java understand that the database resource I needed was available so it wouldn't run. However there is this nice utility called Java-config that lets you set the classpath.... so lets use that. Wrong! Java-config's classpath options are all depreciated so they don't do anything. All the documentation online points to these as the ways of fixing this problem. Thankfully however I stumbled on a forum post that made sense.

If you can't get a class to load on your classpath with Java 1.5 and later: make sure its in your /opt/sun-jdk-1.5.0.08/jre/lib/ext/ directory, where the sun-jdk-1.5.0.08 is your version. Its similar under windows but I can't remember the exact path but it should be something like C:\Program Files\Java\Java-version-here\lib\ext.

I hope this helps someone else save 50 minutes of their life.
-Toraux

Screenshot

Like I said a few weeks ago, here is a screenshot of my desktop. The theme is available here.


-Toraux

Not Much News

There isn't much news to report today. Past few days I've been trying to keep my head above water with homework. I haven't forgotten about dynamic, I just need a break. I think this weekend I'm staying on campus so I should have some more time to get my stuff done with linux that I need done to get back to development. That and I'm back addicted to Shogun: Total War. Fun game, too bad I had to go to great lengths to get it to run again under Windows XP. I've also been picking up quite a bit from my World Civ's reading that seems to tie into the concept of villages, tribes, and nations in dynamic, and should shape how the development for that goes. Once I'm back full time development will speed right along.

Anyway, until later.
-Toraux

TGIF

Thankfully I get a few days to recuperate before my next week of school. It has been a pretty tough week getting back adjusted to school, and now I have a lot of hw to catch up on. Lots of reading for all my classes, thats basically my plan for tomorrow now that I'm home for the weekend. Come tomorrow night I'm heading back to school, hopefully on Sunday I'll be able to finish up my reading and clear out the remainder of my linux todo list. I think ill be posting a screen shot or two of my desktop, I think it looks quite cool. Hopefully I will have time to at least get the repository opened up on Sunday, if not it will happen next week sometime, I want to code!

Anyway tired.
-Toraux

Coding This Weekend

I believe that all the updates and software have all been installed. My new stuff also worked with gimp, the graphics editor I wanted but couldn't get to work before my failure. Most likely on Sunday I will unpack the repository and see if my todo list is there and possibly start coding. Friday is my heaviest day class wise, and I still have to go about backing up all my critical config and install files so next time I pull a stupid move and nuke linux ill be ready.

Speaking of backups, if I find out my todo list isn't in the repository I will make a move to write a shell script to auto backup Dynamic MUD and the todo list at the same time. That way ill know what I have left to do if I'm ever forced to revert to an old version. Hopefully it wont take me long to get back on my feet. I want to make progress. I also think I'm going to reinstall Shogun: Total War. I'm about 95% done reading "The Art of War" by Sun-Tzu, and want to try applying the strategies to combat. That and I think the game is a good influence for ideas in terms of large scale strategic combat and tactical warfare that might spill over into Dynamic's design.

Anyway, tired as always.
-Toraux

Getting There

I'm almost back to normal. Got several packages left to install, and some backups of config files etc. Unfortunately I think I lost my todo file. Ill find out once subversion is installed and I open up my repository.

I figured out my Java problems yesterday, and I'm quite proud of myself. With Java transitioning between version 1.4 and 1.5 there is some complication i the installation process. The Java-config-1 script... used for setting your generation 1 virtual machine had a bug.. trying to reference a variable that didn't exist, so I cracked it open and commented out the line, and now I have Java. Eclipse is currently installing in the background, making writing this quite a pain in the ass.

Guess there isn't much else left to mention, ill hopefully have an update later.
-Toraux

Fixing Linux

Well, I'm still trying to fix linux. The core stuff is successfully installed but I'm still short most of my development tools and other day to day utilities. Next on my list is Java and Eclipse, followed by subversion and mysql. Java is giving me a hard time because of the transition from 1.4 to 1.5 so hopefully it will go more smoothly tomorrow. Hopefully I can get this stuff taken care of soon, I miss coding.

In other news Google Code Jam utterly destroyed me. I think I got problem 1, but problem 2 was way too hard to solve in the time allotted. And based on the high scores I'm not Indian enough to be a top contestant. Anyway, not that big of a deal, this way I wont have to worry about competing in round 2.

As for classes, had Digital Circuits and Operating Systems today. I think I'm going to like these classes! Circuits is basically going to be Digital Logic in CMOS I think, and Operating Systems will just rock. I've always wanted to code my own Kernel Modules and Device Drivers. Maybe ill finally be able to conquer the hardware that never wants to work in linux for me! Tomorrow is: Discrete Math, World Civs I, and Continuous Linear Systems. Discrete sounds like the teacher will make the class a bitch (he wont hit all the material but were still responsible for it), but at least it isn't calc. And I hear the professor for CLS is really hard, so hopefully that will go ok.

Hopefully ill have better news tomorrow.
-Toraux

Progress Continues

I've been making progress as expected. The new faction stuff works well, and the test went well today. My aim for this next week is to improve the editfaction command. I want to improve the feedback and response of the command so it will be easy to use for staff members in the future. Right now it was kind of hacked together last minute to be ready for the test today. After that I aim to improve the performance command to hopefully be able to track a longer period of time and maybe even more accurately. The performance information is very useful for getting a grasp on how much work the game does.

After that I'm moving on to installing SSH server support for my linux machine. I want to be able to connect from the classroom once I'm at school if I have extra downtime or I'm bored. Being able to work on code or fix a server issue remotely will be something I need, and has been on my todo list for a very long time.

The next major block of changes after that is a handful or two of communications changes. Adding shout, allowing users to search for a specific number of lines in the communications logs etc. Oh and I almost forgot, ill be transferring to the new site change notification system in the next week, I just need to pick one I like and test it.

Until next time.
-Toraux

Paint Programs for KDE

Man is it a pain to get a damn paint program to work under KDE. Kolourpaint which should be a simple one line command to install: emerge kolourpaint under gentoo should install it fine. For some reason its missing mimetypes or something, and ive wasted the whole day to failing the fix. Other packages ive tried today wont even compile, graphics hate me this week I guess. Im trying to emerge xpaint as I write this, hopefully this one will work. All I need is the ability to edit .png image files.

I also exchanged the crappy copy of "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu today for a better copy. The copy I got for my birthday had a paragraph from Sun Tzu and then like 5 from various interpreters, rinse and repeat. I hope to apply some of this reading to the Dynamic design. Warefare will be deeply rooted in the real world art of military strategy. I cant wait for large battles and combat in dynamic. A good stress reducer to go all or nothing when the day is going bad.

And back on the topic of paint programs.... xpaint is installed, can open my file and works, now if it had features id be all set. Never good middle ground, eesh.

Also, I need people to throw ideas at me for a name for the game world. I want to get this thing posted on topmudsites and else where. I also wouldnt mind hearing from people if they could tell me if they would vote or not on topmudsites.

Do any of you post regularly in gaming forums? Would you put a link here in your profile/signature? Im brainstorming ideas to grow traffic.

Anyway im tired.
-Toraux

Mapping

Im going to start off and say Yesterday was by birthday, and thanks everyone who said "Happy Birthday" etc. I spent the morning developing the map writing code for dynamic, followed by playing Half Life 2: Episode 1. Was a decent short game, felt a little weak compared to the original Half Life 2, but the trailer for Episode 2 rocked.

Most of the map reading code is done, im waiting now on the install for some image editing software for linux so I can try drawing some stuff and test the reading code. Ill probably draw a whole lot of features onto the map and see if it loads ok and all that stuff.

The next test is currently planned for Sunday August 27th. Please click the link at the top right and join the Tester group if your interested in logging in and helping me test the core engine. Remember you need to be a member of the mailing list to be approved for the test group, that link is also at the top right of the page.

C-ya later all.
-Toraux

Progress

I booted in linux for the first time in a long time today. Its going to take a bit to get used to again. I messed around with JUnit and started confirming some other minor things I have been planning on for the future implementation.

On the advertising front I think I will be signing up for a mailing list that people should be able to sign up for here to recieve updates as I post them here. I think I might start posting on news groups next week, I know there have to be a whole bunch of interested people on those, last time I posted a direct request for people to log on the site we had about 300 hits so who knows it might help a lot.

Tomorrow I need to teach, but starting thursday I plan on begining to write out class definitions for the base classes. Im hoping on having these definitons written out by the end of next week. After that I will be writting out the basic class list, writting pseudo code for each function in the base classes and finally writting a simple test plan. Once I have all this stuff and checked it all out I will start going down the list and hopefully implement a minimum of a class per week. Cant wait.

Anyways see you later.
-Toraux