Week 30.1 – Whew!

First off, sorry for the poor blog post yesterday. I spent Friday-Sunday solidly reading through server documentation, following tutorials, and being really frustrated with all the problems I kept facing. I was so tired when I was writing that. The past half week has been very tough, way harder than I thought it would be. Working a server is not a task someone with no experience or understanding of servers can just casually pick up and do.

I felt really bad last night. I had sent around the link to the alpha game while the server will still preparing for launch after its initial crash. The server was ready by about 00:30am local time and unfortunately it crashed again when it went up. Fixing a server can take several hours and there was no way I could stay up that long playing around with it. Had to call it a day and leave it down overnight.

This morning I found this problem causing the crash and fixed it. There have been a few minor hiccups since then but the server appears to be stable now. All its performance metrics are reading what they should and all the traffic from the alpha players hasn’t caused any issues – the server looks to be able to support a lot more players than the current number, although it is difficult to work out an exact number because the usage from players is partly stochastic in its nature, especially when working with very low player numbers. All I can say is I don’t believe we are even close to the usage capacity of the server.

Whew!

I had two big worries when I launched the server. The first being that part of me really believed that no one other than myself would be able to use the site. I was half expecting to launch it and then for everything to be broken and no one able to do anything on it. hahaha…. so did not almost happen.

The second worry was that the server would be overloaded with all the traffic. CCSO is not a ‘standard’ website – it sends a lot of data to and from the database per player. The table for games has over 100 columns alone… That’s a hell of a lot of data. You even notice the effects of it when a round ends and the page auto-refreshes and blinks a few times before displaying the final results. There is a lot of processing that goes into updating a round and yeah I probably could make it more efficient if I rewrote the entire thing, but that doesn’t actually seem to be needed at this stage. All this processing barely makes a dent in the server capacity! Phew.

Anyway, things are working and look good. I’ll leave the server running overnight here and this time I’m reasonably confident it will still be working in the morning. If the server can stay up for a full 24 hours, I will have confidence that it can stay up indefinitely. (perhaps a little naive, but I’m feeling lucky here :P).

How Hard Actually Was It?

Let’s say I almost gave up on several occasions.

And on many accounts I had to take breaks because it was just getting too hard and I could see no way of making it work.

But Here We Are

30 weeks ago I said we would have a just about working game by the end of the year. I would say we have done this, although you might be a little bit more skeptical depending on how you interpret that statement. But no matter how you view it, we are on the verge of having a fully functional game. The core functionality is there. It is just the extra parts that need adding.

But The Site is So UGLY!

I know. This is not how it is going to look in the end. As I’ve been saying all along, the important thing now is to get the game working, and then we can worry about how it looks later on. The site looks utter crap, but for my very first website I think it is pretty good. It is fairly alright, just not the most ergonomic or fancy.

I’m expecting a design overhaul to be done in time for the Beta release – something that is expected in late 2015.

How Can I Test The Game?

Feel free to make a second account. I have added a special 2 player game mode for testing. For the second account, make sure you use a different email to the first or it won’t sign you up. This email can be fake and needn’t exist at all. Don’t worry about it.

When on the game screen, the view button will appear only once the game is full. Use separate browsers for your accounts, otherwise your sessions will overwrite each other; this is not a special feature in CCSO, all websites do this. You try having two accounts open at the same time in the same browser on any other site and you will quickly see that one of them get logged out. It’s just the nature of websites.

Anyway, keep an eye out for bugs and spelling mistakes.

Also, do check the bug thread and the component status page for components that should be working in the game and dodgy buggy traps that might catch you if you’re not careful. Please report anything weird that isn’t listed.

 

Where From Here?

The main focus will be on making more components functional. I’ll fix some of the other bugs along the way too. Each bug is listed from a high to low priority. This doesn’t define the order I’ll do them in, but will certainly influence it.

 

And Finally….

I FEEL AMAZING!

No, I’m not on drugs. Probably. What I mean is as a game developer, releasing my game (even if it is an early alpha) and seeing others play it is so fulfilling. I feel like a genius after getting the server working, and now I see all my hard work has paid off. Game developers get high off people playing their games apparently.

And on that note,

Goodbye for now. I’ll see you all soon!

 

P.S. How did I go from knowing nothing to this in 30 weeks? o.O

P.P.S. Today has been the best day by far for views on this blog. In fact, we broke the old record by almost a factor of 4 :O And this day hasn’t even ended yet! http://i.imgur.com/UYJBsut.png

Bugs and Suggestions

Full list of known bugs and suggested improvements.

BUGS

• Abilities can’t be upgraded. [HIGH PRIORITY]
• Votes do not display to other players when you make them. [HIGH PRIORITY]
• You can view games you aren’t in or which haven’t started, and you can play in games that haven’t begun. (although this bug requires some degree of skill to pull off). [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Rounds do not yet end automatically. WORKAROUND: All players must end the round for the round to end. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Some weapons such as the Ballista Impact can have damage enhancements – they shouldn’t be available. *waits for everyone to exploit this* [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Death messages don’t display and dead players aren’t announced. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• If you customise a unit and then customise it again, it charges you extra gold. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• When Stun Gun prevents a user gaining UP, that user still receives a UP Gained message. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Damaged players in a round are not listed. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Boost+ displays in the wrong place in the ability list. [LOW PRIORITY]
• Ability types refer to GROUND instead of LAND. [LOW PRIORITY]
• Muscleman isn’t displayed and can’t be used. [HIGH PRIORITY]
• Apostrophes in game descriptions throw an error. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Radar for some reason ends up in all ability slots when selected. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]

TO-DO IMPROVEMENTS

• Make all components fully functional. [HIGH PRIORITY]
• Where are the teams? [HIGH PRIORITY]
• The unit creator could be made more streamlined. I.e. easier customising from the main area, and the possibility of selecting components directly from the main screen if the user knows exactly what they want. [MEDIUM PRIORITY] Partially Fixed: Abilities page loads much, much faster now.
• Games should be deleted once they finish. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Votes should display from most to least voted for player. [MEDIUM PRIORITY]
• Powered abilities shouldn’t display by default but instead require the user to click a button in the normal ability’s section. [LOW PRIORITY]
• Unit Creator: Incompatible components should be greyed out. [LOW PRIORITY]
• The text fields for entering the game description or your death message could be bigger. [LOW PRIORITY]
• Should be able to quit games you join before they start. [LOW PRIORITY]
• Upgrade names need finishing. Suggestions welcome! [LOW PRIORITY]

Week 30 – Alpha Release!

It’s here! And goddamn, getting CCS: Alpha online ranks extremely high in my list of challenges faced while making CCSO. I’ve never known something to be so complicated and have so many different things to it.

And then when I had it up it all crashed and I’ve spent the past 5-6 hours trying to fix it. I believe the site is back up online now and I’ll send everyone a private invite instead of just posting the link here. Please don’t share the link as I will ban any account I do not recognise. We need to understand how the site holds up to traffic and make sure it doesn’t crash again. Easiest to do this with minimal users 😛

This blog entry is empty and small this week as I’ve been so busy with the server. I’ll post a bigger one maybe mid-week if all goes well. In the meanwhile, here are the hundreds fixes from this week – I really worked hard to iron out all the smaller bugs in time 😛

FIXED BUGS:
* In the unit creator, chassis and weapon names now display correctly after being selected.
* Unit creator: Empty ability slots no longer display ‘Duration: 0’ but now declare they are empty.
* Unit creator: Errors are output better and when your unit isn’t made, it won’t tell you the wrong errors.
* Fixed a colour bug with the plus/minus buttons on the enhacements screens.
* Some chassis and weapons still referred to Specials instead of Abilities – now fixed.
* A bunch of minor things broke when I put CCS online. I think they are all fixed now, but we’ll have to see if anything weird happens. EDIT: The last server crash seems to have messed some stuff up again. The site generally works though. Will fix tomorrow.

ADDED/CHANGED FEATURES:
* Grounds units renamed to Land. (Mostly, anyway)
* Unit creator: nicer ability names display.
* The range enhancement, armor enhancement, Wall, and Blink changes in the forum CCS have been added to CCSO.
* Added a little surprise. I call him Godbot, and I’ll let you figure him out 😛
* Coded the old components statistics page! This is a nice addition, especially now that it will auto update itself when a component is edited or added.
* Chassis and weapons now have space for art.
* Powers and status effects are now output in the game.
* Can now purchase UP while creating a unit. Yeah, it’s a cheap addition. I’ll make it better in the future 😛
* (SHOULD be working) Rounds end after every player has hit the end round button. This is a temporary workaround while I figure out how to use a countdown clock to automatically end rounds and say how much time is left.

NEW BUGS:
* None? But the server is playing up a bit.

I’ll clear all the old game data tomorrow so all my old tests aren’t there.

Keep an eye out for spelling mistakes!

Fingers crossed this site is still up in the morning!

UPDATE 2014/12/29: Server is back online after crashing last night. Database issues fixed too.

Week 29.5 – CCS Quiz!

How many of these do you know without looking up the answers? 😛 Go on, give it a try!

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Correct Answers

1. 80%.
2. 4 gold.
3. 2 range.
4. Ballista Impact. (Ballista Impact = 60, Tempest = 48, Magma Missiles = 40, Drill = 36)
5. Far Sight. (Sight however is passive)
6. 6 elements. (fire, water, ice, electric, construction, technology)
7. Nemesis.
8. Each ability can only be used once.
9. Boost All – UP.
10. 12 enhancements. (one damage enhancement, two upgrade damage enhancements, one starting HP, one upgrade HP, two heals, one armor, speed, UP, range, and death message.)

If you got 8 or more right, congrats, you need to get out more 😛

Week 29 – Fast Month!

Whoosh! Over a month of free time right now. Progress will be much more rapid. This week should bring about the game’s release. It is basic, but it allows all of you to follow along with the progress as a live site instead of just reading these blog posts all the time.

If I told myself 30 weeks ago that I would have a functioning game by now… back when I knew nothing of web development and I couldn’t even tell my echoes from my alerts… I would have never believed myself and I would be questioning my sanity after being visited by my future self.

But seriously, I would have never thought this would happen. Although I am one of those people who is acutely aware of all their strengths and weaknesses, I was still doubtful over whether or not I would succeed in this. When you have a game this huge and complicated laid out in front of you and you have no skills to deal with it, you know, it’s a little daunting.

Yet I am disciplined enough to know not to celebrate early. The game isn’t fully done yet and the sheer amount of work left is enough to make anyone run for the hills! But if everyone gave up when times got tough we would still be living in caves.

We come a long way since the start. Let’s not forget this isn’t just me here. Harmless and Laura have been amazingly hard working and we are very fortunate to have them on the team 🙂 Harmless has been a bit quiet recently with his music but says he can make much more soon. Laura, on the other hand, has crafted another four masterpieces:

From top left, Sight, Grenade, Bugcatcher, and Radar.

In preparation for the coming alpha release, every art piece has been added to the game!

I’m getting pretty good at this web design stuff now.

Anyway, talking about alpha, yes it is supposed to be out next week, and it should be. I’ve made a list of everyone who will have alpha access. It includes everyone who has expressed interest in CCSO for an extended period of time. If you think someone is missing, do send a message.

• ATimeParadox
• boomerg
• bowserjr
• cheesecoffee0
• ElDromedario
• glimmer
• Halpo
• harmless
• josephvl
• Laurasnake
• NeroZero
• retry
• sirboomalot
• Supersausagedog
• smittywjj
• THEFANG

That’s 16 people, plus myself. I ask you to refrain from inviting others at the moment – I wish to keep CCSO:Alpha restricted for the immediate future.

Further to the inclusion of art, I have added a basic navigation system around the site to make it possible to navigate – before I would just type in address names to navigate pages lol.

I’ll setup a second blog post when the alpha goes up so there is somewhere public to track and post bugs.

Like I said last week, this update would be small. I have been very busy this week. The dissertation is done, and I had to make presentation too that will be assessed at the university late in January. I’m back home now. But this does mean I’ll be able to work on CCSO full-time for the next few weeks ^_^

I want to touch up a few parts of the game and perhaps add a few more components before I try to get the alpha game online. I still aim for it to be done by this time next week 😛

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As I look back on how far the game has come, I wonder if in two years from now I’ll look back on this blog, possibly abandoned as things move on, and remember how CCSO all started?

In two years the current CCS setup may be completely dead as everyone would have moved over to the new version. The game there will stop being updated as CCSO comes into existence. It will be frozen in time. I wonder what all of us will feel as we rediscover the game long into the future.

Sigh, is reminiscence a positive or negative feeling? It’s like a mix of both.

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See you next week with the alpha!

Week 28 – A Great Week!

You could probably tell from the jolly tone of the secret mid-week post (Week 27.5 – CCS Trivia!) that I am really happy! Today I bring you all good news: a bunch of bugs have been fixed, loads more art is included, and new components have been added!

In the componet list (view) the following statuses have upgraded to Green or above: Hydro, Pave Low, Bunkerbuster, Puncture, Stinger, Icicle Launcher, and the Stun Gun. Shocking, isn’t it? Well there are almost 200 components to add, but this is a start. And yeah, I’m adding them in difficulty order xD Some of them are going to be real bugbears to make work, so I’m leaving them ’till last.

Art

Talking about starting at the easiest and working up, Laura has been busy this week with the art; totally not because I’ve been pestering her continuously 😛 Six new abilities have now been graphic’d! Thanks to NeroZero for some of the suggestions too!

From top left across: Blink, Blur, Bomb, Heli-Propeller, Reboot, and Reload. Awesome.

A Colourful Health Bar

On the topic of graphics, check out this funky health bar – I’ve got it changing colour as it depletes.

Are all the colours clearly differentiated on your screens? Every screen treats colours differently and everone interprets them differently, so if two are too similar or one can’t be differentiated from the red depleted area let me know!

Upgrade Names

“Upgrade 3 on ability X is awesome”…

Nothing like talking in numbers. One idea I have had for a very long time now is adding names to every upgrade. It would add more atmosphere, but I’ve never done it because of the limited space in the current CCS forum system – it would make many upgrades span two lines and therefore make the pages of abilities even longer and more threatening to new players.

Have a look below. Click to view full size. Pro tip: middle mouse click to open the image in a new tab. I’ve been browsing the web for years using the middle mouse button 🙂 Works wonders! What do you think? Only a handful have these names at the moment. If you don’t like them I’ll just take them out, no problem.

Full List of Changes

(since last week)

FIXED BUGS:
* You can no longer vote for dead players.
* Dead players do not get a vote and cannot activate abilities.
* Fixed a really odd bug that stopped some players using abilities because the system was mididentifying the user.
* The second player to join a game can no longer be hit with a single vote. Strange, I know. You seriously can’t make these bugs up haha.

ADDED FEATURES:
* Health bar now changes colour as damage is taken, transitioning from green through yellow and orange to deep red.
* End of round votes are now stored.
* Past round votes and level up screens are now visible.
* All players can see their own level up screens.
* Seven new components added.

NEW BUGS 😦
* Votes do not display instantly to all other players when you make them…
* If you customise a unit and then customise it again before submission, it charges you extra gold. o.O

Busy This Week

And while we’re on a negative topic…

This coming week I’m going to be extremely busy. As some of you may know, I’m on my placement year at university right now. Next week is my final week (HORRAY!). But this does also mean the disseration I’m writing as part of my time here needs to be finished by close of play Friday. This might mean staying a couple extra hours at work each day to finish it. There isn’t that much left to do, but I don’t want to underestimate it.

Then, next Sunday I’ll be moving out of this house and going back to my family for a month before university starts again. This means on Saturday I’ll be running around like crazy packing all my stuff and saying goodbye to the wonderful friends I have made down here. This is the last time I’ll be in this area. Sunday will be spent almost entirely on travel, unpacking, and catching up on everything back home.

So probably nothing major is going to be posted next week, but I’ll try my best. After this however, I’ll be fully free for a month, so there will be very rapid development. Oh, and the Alpha release in about two weeks from now 😛 Should be golden times for CCSO.

In February I’ll be starting my studies again, for the final time. I graduate from this four year course in summer. During the semester things will go kinda quiet here for CCSO, but I’ll see if I can get our musician and artist creating plenty of work to keep this active 🙂

Breaking the 200 Hit Limit!

But let’s not end this post on a low now haha.

Yesterday we smashed 200 blog views! How do we keep picking up so many? I’ve been trying to work out how many weekly visitors we get and it seems to be about 25. That’s over three per day 😮 Lovely!

Anyway, tally-ho! Onwards to 1000!

Alpha?

Yeah, it’s going to be on time. The game is almost good enough to release right now 😛 There’s just a few more things I want to change and a small number of bugs. This will be the last week of work, for after this week I’ll be focused on getting CCSO online and public.

I really don’t know how hard putting it online will be… Like I would optimistically imagine all I have to do is press a button and it’ll be up; but I know this probably won’t be the case and a  lot of technical playing around, googling stuff, and throwing things at walls will likely be the route to success.

Well, we’ll see what happens when that time comes. See you all next week!

Week 27.5 – Suprise! CCS Trivia and Fun!

Did you Know?

• It is impossible to create a unit with 1% armour.
  Also impossible are 2%, 3%, 4%, 6%, 7%, 8% and 11% armour levels!
• In the earliest CCS versions, custom death messages cost gold to have.
• Phantom was originally a land unit and for Speedy there has been a lot of debate whether it be land or air. Yarrrrrr
• Players originally had 1500 gold to spend on unit creation and components cost proportionally more. This amount was globally reduced after complaints on how difficult it was to count and keep track of gold spent.
• The Potato Shooter is one of the most feared weapons in CCS, for if a player has it you know they may have a super-buffed chassis and highly upgraded abilities. Not to mention that fact that the Potato Shooter’s damage doubles in the very first round, making its damage the fastest growing in the game. Only the mighty Ballista Impact can rival the potato shooter for infamy and fear.

Did you also know?

Keyholefixed’s personal favourite abilities are Blink, Missile, Stun Bolt, and Toxin. He also likes the Power Hull, Caster, and Capsule chassis. He has no preference when it comes to weapons.

The ability he hates the most is Self-Destruct. This opinion is echoed by many CCS players after a self-destruction wiped out half the players in a game in a single round in the early CCS days… ah, those memories… painful memories for many x.x

Fun Fact: New players often interpret Self-Destruct’s description “You may only use this skill once per game.” as a joke. They have yet to understand that in the right combination Self-Destruct will not always destroy you.

The more you know…

The number of updates in response to overpowered unit combinations and to exploits have reduced to pretty much 0 these days, but when CCS first came out they were one of the most common updates players would see. At its peak, exploits were being reported on a daily basis.

Things get difficult when…

Half of players think a component is too weak and the other half think it is too strong. No one ends up happy.

Favourite Idea Suggestions

Polisher – The only weapon deemed more useless than the infamous potato shooter!
Damage: -5 (-2)

Why kill each other when you can give each other a nice polish and have a super shiny unit? 😛

Orb – Is invisible, almost immortal, blocks stuff… can’t damage, nor do anything else.
Health: 100 (+0)
Armor: 500% (or 0%?)
Speed: 3
Effect: Cannot be detected on the field. Units trying to pass through it will have their movement blocked. This chassis causes the user to deal 0 damage regardless of weapon or special. Automatically has a fully upgraded Blink as Special. (does not count towards victory conditions?)
Cost: 20

This suggestion somehow got 4 pages of responses to it. Orb’s only purpose is to block other units and just be a nuisance to its team. Totally a serious idea.

Splash (Aqua)
It’s not very effective…
Cooldown: 1
Cost: FREE

And yet some people missed the reference entirely… I fainted.

Onion Shooter – The sheer fact this exists is not the only thing about it that makes me cry.
Air only
Damage: 0 (+1) [x0.5]
Range: 6
Note: Can only fire in even-numbered rounds. Can vote in all rounds, but will
not attack in odd rounds.
Cost: FREE

If you have a potato shooter, why not have an onion shooter? pewpew.

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Had fun? Hehe, see you all in a few days!

Week 27 – Everything is Awesome!

Everything is cool when you’re part of a team… [not too late, am I?]

Massive Strides in Game Progress

FIXED BUGS:
* Dead units coming back to life with ridiculous health quantities.
* Only being able to select your latest design to play with.
* List of signed up players to a game now works as it should.
* If two players had a unit with the same name, the game broke when the second player selected this unit.
* Movement now defaults to 0 at the start of every round. So if you moved up 3 last round, you won’t unknowingly move up 3 in the current round by not submitting movement. Same for votes and abilities.
* Certain usernames could completely cock-up the game. Added a layer of protection against this.

ADDED FEATURES:
* Game dynamically generates a list of players within your min/max range for you to vote for. There is an optional abstain choice.
* Attacking works! Players with more than two votes will be attacked.
* Your unit on the battlefield is now bolded.
* Made the layout more spacey and added section titles, moved a few parts around, and created guidance text (see below pic) to offer a reminder to new players on how to play. All part of the scheme to make CCS more welcoming. At some point I’ll offer an option of disabling this text so veterans don’t have to see it.
* Actions are now displayed. (your movement, vote and abilities).
* Level up display added.
* Can now cancel votes and abilities. Abilities can only be cancelled on the round they are activated on.
* Health bar! Woo!

KNOWN BUGS/MISSING FEATURES:
* Votes are not listed or kept past a round.
* The level up screen only displays to the user who ends the round
* Rounds do not end automatically.
* Unit powers and status effects are not shown.
* You can play games without them being full. (but this is a great feature to test games with so it will be the last thing I fix :P)

No video this week as the game basically hasn’t changed. It just works a lot better now. But here is a barrel load of pics (click for bigger images).

1. Full game screen as current.

2. Level up display. All numbers are fully functional.

3. Working signed-up list for games.

4. Fully working health bar, close up. The full bar can be seen in the first pic.

Pictures are amazing aren’t they? 😛 No new components have been added to the game yet… and those last few bugs need to be fixed. Other than that the game is ready for Alpha pretty much. I still want to make the site just a tad easier to navigate before the Alpha release but that won’t take long.

Following from this, does anyone know of a good php web server host that is fairly cheap and can support the game? Something that doesn’t have too huge of a restriction on computer time or database size would be good. I’ve been reading reviews and http://www.siteground.com/ comes out on top by far. Has anyone ever hosted with them before? What are your thoughts? Are there better hosts out there? Siteground does offer a money back guarantee… tempting. I read through their entire ToS earlier today and they don’t seem that bad. (yeah, I’m one of the few people in the world who actually reads ToS’s… but only when I am risking my own captial haha.)

Anyway…

We Have Passed 100 Views!

Since the week 24 post, we have reached over 100 blog views. In fact, we reached 100 last Sunday, and right now we have 141 views. They are increasing really fast now we have established a presence.

Oh and there was a massive spike in visits on Thursday. Were you guys expecting me to release another mid-week update? 😮 Unfortunately, they will be quite rare…

More Art!

So many pics this week, wow. This is a pretty major update.

Missile and Far Sight 😛 Thank our awesome Laura!

The blog background has been updated, as I promised last week, with all this art. It looks so awesome 😛 I’m sure you have already noticed it.

Progress Sheet updated saying with these two new pieces. Although no component statuses have changed colour this week 😦

This Week

The previously mentioned bugs will be fixed and a bunch of components should be in the game.

But with everything programming… you never can tell what is going to happen.

I always try my best for your guys though 🙂

Three weeks until the alpha, will it be ready?

Certainly seems so. If all that is left are a few bug fixes and adding a reasonable set of components, then there isn’t that much work remaining. The alpha release is definitely in sight!

An early alpha release is even possible if things go swimmingly, but I wouldn’t hold on to my boat for that one. Might just get shipwrecked yet…