DataManagement is a Bitch

I wish this rewrite was done already. Whenever I give myself a multiday project when I dont get to actually test code for days or weeks really kills me. Its not very fun and there arent any results to go on. Hopefully I can have this stuff out of the way by the end of the coming weekend.

I am dying to play, thinking about all the political intrigue, wars, a real life or death struggle to survive makes the game so appealing to me. A real try at seeing what it would be like if you were to head off into combat or make changes in a large thriving world. The intensity of going from a period of peace to complete annihilation as your tribe or nation leader summons you to go into battle. Whether it be for defense or conquest makes no difference, it will all be quite fun.

The core keeps seeming like it will take longer and longer. I only really have 2 or 3 good weekends left before school. Even those seem kind of pitiful but i'll take what I get. Hopefully the core will be done by the end of October at the latest. Once the core is done it will be a big transition to filling out a lot of the major content. Room types, combat, Humanoids, Item creation. Then the game will really kind of transition over into what DynamicMUD was during my original attempt when I was messing around with Python.

If you have questions or ideas feel free to talk to me about them. Hearing interest from people is really what makes me want to keep working on this project. Anyway I need some sleep as always, hopefully ill have some good news this weekend.

-Toraux

Restructuring DataSystem

I am currently restructuring the data storage system. This will hopefully be more robust and less prone to stupid errors and make the data more easily changed when the game isnt in operation.

As for testing ive had some people ask me when he next test is... most likely I will plan at least one more chance before I go back to school, probably some weekend in mid to late August. This test would be geared mainly to stress testing the newly rewritten and enhanced code and be less of a test of new features.

In other news I realized today that Java 1.5 contains functionality to track time in nano seconds. Hopefully this will make my testing code much more accurate!

Anyway gotta sleep, work tomorrow.
-Toraux

Slow and Steady wins the Race

I got a bit done today. The theme now seems to be slow and steady wins the race. Every time I tried to code and I rushed it things sucked down the line. I am now refactoring a lot of my stuff and even possibly rewriting the data storage framework to make things more efficient and robust. New features have been few and far between, but once this core engine is done things should start pouring out.

I installed my new CD-RW drive this morning, definately recommend Lite-On drives, well labeled, cheap, good companion software, and an easy install. Also cleaned up the inside and organized the wires etc too.

After that I upgrade to Java 1.5 and tried out this generics thing. I have to say it makes my code a lot cleaner in a lot of places. On the otherhand the over complication of java isnt exactly a great thing either, but at least it works. My next few objectives over the weekend are mainly refactoring and cleaning up core things. Making things well rounded and good for future use is of the utmost importance. Hopefully the core will be done by the end of August or September, but at my current rate of development that might be too high of an aim. Guess we'll need to wait and see. Anyway, going to sleep now and hopefully get up early tomorrow and hit a lot of stuff, I lose next weekend for a bit of a vacation so I need to try and keep up the pace now.

Later,
-Toraux