Mar 5th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
Been a busy few days. Among other things:
* You can now buy in-game money in the UI. Click on the “Need Cash?” tab. My heartfelt thanks to the handful of players who have already done this. =)
* I’ve fixed the bug that was sending team stats through the roof.
* With Tammy‘s help, I fixed the “stuck-after-a-game” bug that afflicted mouse-users (numpad players weren’t affected).
* Most of the “top10” lists are now live as of this morning. I still need to code the “last game” and “best” top10 lists, though.
* I overhauled how the game logs what it logs (which is, frankly, almost everything). Soon I’ll be writing a bunch of reports.
* Renamed items now require the “sellbig” command, so you don’t accidentally sell your customized items.
* I tinkered with cans. Then un-tinkered with them.
* I tinkered with padded items so they now have a chance of *not* bouncing regular ammo. Not a huge chance, but a chance.
Overall, I think the game is coming together pretty nicely. Though I feel like my to-do hasn’t shrunk by much…
I bought a domain name over the weekend, so I hope to get the web page setup this week. Then I can I start writing all those tutorials.
Have fun!
-David
Mar 7th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
If you play tonight, make sure you do a forced page reload.
Player names now display below their icons. If there’s more than one player in a location, the name is the guy on “top”.
And there were other changes here and there. All the top10 lists should be working now, for example. And I put in code to keep the scroll from getting too long and slowing you down. And, you know, stuff.
The game is coming together. Running smoothly. If you’ve been putting off checking back in, you should give it a go. =)
-David
March 9th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
A bit of weekend experimenting.
I’ve added the following items to the Armor Shop (because that’s where the boots were):
* Running Shoes ($100) – fast movement on grass/hills. Lightweight, small (ish)
* Trail Shoes ($200) – fast movement on grass/hills and forests/jungles. Lightweight (ish), small (ish)
* Hiking Boots ($300) – fast movement on forest/jungles, mountains, and deserts.
While I was at it:
* Padded Boots are now $250.
* Turbo Boots are now $1500 (turbo kit $1750).
The trail shoes are actually slightly faster in forests/jungles than turbo boots. Same goes for hiking boots in forests/jungles, mountains and desert. Why? Because turbo automatically affects all land terrain and the new “fast move” is terrain-specific. But you can totally kit out a pair of hiking boots with turbo and flippers and have some truly remarkable footwear that would probably scare small children and most service animals. =)
Nothing’s set in stone. I just want to see how the idea plays out. Recent weeks have shown that new players are at a huge disadvantage without turbo boots, and this seemed like a way to fill that gap. Newbies can get some running shoes or splurge on some trail shoes and they are pretty much good-to-go, with the option to upgrade later.
Also, I figure, worst case scenario? I just introduced the first rare items into the new PBN era. 😉
Have fun!
-David
March 12th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
I posted a new UI today, so use Ctrl+F5 (or local browser equivalent) to make sure you’re using the latest.
Assuming I was clever enough, this new UI should allow you to be on the game indefinitely. Before, after a while, the amount of text in the scroll area would cause your browser to slow way down (and/or crash), especially when going into (or leaving) a game.
This has been an issue since the beginning, but maybe the past few days of crunching on this (and learning more about how the DOM works) means I can finally cross it off my list.
With that out of the way, I can move on to the so-called lobby, which will finally allow you to see who’s on each server *before* you log on. Among other things.
I’m also hoping I can get PBN’s actual web page going this week. I’ll post the URL when my ISP *FINALLY* updates their DNS and I can reach it. (grumbles)
Thanks for playing!
-David
March 13th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
The game’s UI improved significantly yesterday and today. Besides fixes/improvements for the info scroll and the whoa-that’s-a-lot-of-splats freeze bug, I also worked on the touchpad. I have the touchpad scale larger/smaller based on the resolution of the device, and made it give some visual feedback.
On the game side of the fence, I implemented a more compact form of the “who game” output (at the request TheQtPie), made it so the game won’t spam you with “you can’t leave the holding area” messages, and overhauled newbie equipment.
Newly created players now get:
* a paintball gun (+ full hopper)
* a woodland camo jacket
* running shoes
* $1000 (same as before)
Plus I changed the default buttons to reflect those equipment changes. I even made the “Get Token” button be “get token & put token jacket”. Because I’m nice like that.
I also reorganized the gunshop’s list a bit. Moved the paintball ammo to the top of the list. Renamed the free gun/rifle/ammo so they just say “free” and don’t include that very misleading word “beginners” (because everyone knows the free gun is *not* for beginners).
I’m still waiting for my domain name to resolve, so no news on the web page.
Thanks for playing!
-David
Mar 14th, 2019
Paintball Net Update and Open Question
First, the update: The beginner server and tournament server now randomly generate their maps when they start up. I was able to use the map generator code Dug wrote, and twiddle with settings until it seems to generate “mostly useful” maps. We’ll see how it goes, and how crazy random can be. =)
Second: I want your suggestions/ideas for how to keep the beginner server beginner friendly.
-David
Mar 16th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
I just booted in a couple new game options: Free Gun Survival and Free Gun Teams
The only weapons that work in those games are–wait for it–free guns. =)
These games are sort of an experiment. A test case for how I’m thinking I’ll configure the beginner server. A first step in that direction. Also, I was curious if anyone actually *wanted* free gun games that were enforced by the game itself. 😉
-David
March 19th, 2019
Paintball Net Update
The Beginner Server now has new restrictions on equipment. When you log in, if anything in your inventory is affected, you will be notified.
Currently, “turbo” is disabled on the beginner server. This just means turbo doesn’t work. If you have something like “hiking boots[swim][turbo]”, only the turbo part doesn’t work. The rest of those odd footwear work as expected.
What also doesn’t work: cloaking, refracto, xray and infrared. And probably interference. And I think I took flying out too.
Weapons: If it shoots “paintball” ammo, it’ll work (all variations, fast, no-bounce, etc). And you can still throw grenades (but you can’t launch them). Rocket launchers and rockets are a no.
The stores on the beginner server don’t list anything that won’t work there.
The other 2 servers have no equipment restrictions.
At least, all of that is the plan. I booted in the changes. Now we’ll see how they hold up to actual playing. =)
Thanks for playing!
-David
Mar 21st, 2019
Paintball Net Update
I just booted in a few more changes. Besides plugging more holes in the beginner server’s restrictions, I did something maybe a bit odd. Burst-mode weapons now show a stream of paintballs (instead of just the one “stack” of paintballs). Because it looks cool. Or I think it does. =) In fact, I’m thinking about upgrading the minigun’s default to a burst of 5 (and raising the cost, of course).
In other news, I’m working on the so-called lobby now. Once I have that ready I can show all the servers and who’s on which as part of the login.
The web page (paintballnet.net) is still (slowly) propagating through the various tubes of the interwebs. I’ll be adding to it a bit at time.
Thanks for playing!
-David