April 1st, 2008Google SubtractsI'm sure most of you have seen me complain about this on the forums, but I figured I'd make an official statement about my displeasure with Google's AdSense service. While I was in the process of relocating, Google suspended my adsense account. I didn't notice for a couple days, and when I tried to log in to see what was up, I found the account had been completely disabled. Apparently there had been some sort of "invalid click" activity that they were very vague in explaining with their automated messages, and now I'm banned from the service for life. I tried to appeal it, but it was still a no go. They didn't even give me a human response, a real explanation, or allow me to look at the account to see what might have happened. In short, I was permanently banned from the service without warning or explanation during a period in which I could do nothing for the actions of other people. Oh, and they didn't pay me for any of the revenue generated, which was well into the 3-digit dollar range. It wasn't enough to live off of, but it was something. Searching around, I found this same thing had happened to a number of people. Some lost thousands of dollars as it was a primary source of revenue. Very poor business practice on Google's part, I think. I'm extremely disappointed with them and strongly discourage anybody from using their service, lest they suffer the same fate. Fortunately I'm out of my temporary unemployment status and am happily employed at Red Storm, which brings me to my next point... It's Been a Fun 10 Years (Almost), But...... I hate to say this on the brink of Paintball 2's 10 year anniversary, but given I do work for a game development company and they do have a non-compete agreement, I don't think I can work on Paintball2 anymore. I was hoping to sneak at least one more release in to at least fix the bugs in build 21, but sometimes fate chooses a different path. Hopefully I can find somebody else to take over the server payments and site updates and forum administration and code updates and bug fixes and checking the cheat log and global banning cheaters and heading up the committee to deal with rule violators and running a beta test server for mappers as well as other game servers and adding channel requests to ventrilo and providing tech support and administering the global login system and recording new sounds and making new textures and models and administering the feature vote system and implementing the high priority requests. But before you come offering to take over, take a look at the date and enjoy your banana textures, you silly, gullible player, you! Sadly, the Google AdSense part was true. February 14th, 2008Build 21 Released; Happy Valentine's Day!Looking for the perfect Valentine gift? Nothing says "I love you" like a new release of Paintball2! With fancy new features like a warmup mode and team deathmatch, the one closest to you will know he or she truly is loved.
- Feature: Added support for variables in menu widgets - usable for map previews, etc. 2:03 AM 1/18/2008 - Tweak: Up and down arrows work on select widgets (lists) 2:38 AM 1/18/2008 - Tweak: Added TAB key for selecting different widgets in the menu. 8:26 PM 1/8/2008 - Cvar: cl_drawfps 2 instantly updates framerate instead of averaging. 3:45 AM 1/4/2008 - Cvar: cl_drawtexinfo displays texture name and flags of surface in front of player. 3:43 AM 1/6/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed blending of lightmaps and transparent textures with alpha channels on trans33 or trans66 surfaces. 3:29 AM 1/6/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed crash with "dumpuser" command. 7:28 PM 1/8/2008 - Bugfix: Fixed rscript envmap on transparent surfaces. 7:03 PM 1/24/2008 - Media: New weapon sounds, including dry fires.
Run over to the files page to grab it. Post feedback in this thread. You can test out the new team deathmatch mode on this server: 70.85.9.178:27913 January 15th, 2008What Do You Want?Sk89q put together a handy feature vote system where you can vote for (or against) features you would like to see in the next version of Paintball2. To vote for a feature, simply visit the Feature Vote link and click the [+] next to feature(s) you want. You must be logged into your global login account first. If there is a feature you'd like to see in the next version, but it isn't listed, there is a special section on the forums for submitting feature requests for voting. Please don't spam requests. Just focus on one or two things you really want soon and be sure to take the time to explain exactly what the feature is and how it would work. January 3rd, 2008Google Ads, IRS SubtractsI'm running a little test here with Google Ads to see if they're worthwhile at all. I've put them on the forums and the dplogin site. Of course, they made me agree to terms that prohibit me from requesting that people click on the ads, so I'm not asking anybody to click on them. Of course, I'm not asking that you not click on them, either. Should you feel the urge to click on any advertisements, please keep in mind that I have not asked you to do so, and there will be incentives to click, nor will there be any rewards if you do do click. All ad-clicking activities are your own doing. Continentals TournamentThe first tournament of the Continentals will be held on January 19 and 20 starting at noon EST both days. Signups are open until January 18 midnight EST. For more details, visit the Continentals site. December 22nd, 2007Merry Christmas and a Happy New Build (20)Build 20 has been "out" for a while now, on the forums and sf.net downloads page, but between my current employment crisis (turns out I'm not moving to California now - if anybody is looking for a skilled developer, let me know), having all my stuff packed up, and some exploits discovered that people have been using to crash servers, it's been a little difficult to put together an official release.
So here's what's new with build 20:
Fast file downloads! These take place over UDP, so no additional configuration should be needed, but if you want to tweak things: - sv_fast_download enables/disables fast file downloading on a server (on by default). - sv_fast_download_max_rate sets the absolute max total transfer rate in KB/s. Effectively, rates will be much slower than this, recommend leaving at 0 to disable. - cl_fast_download enables/disables fast file downloads on the client (on by default).
New sounds. I've been able to record higher quality audio from some of the weapons. Currently just the Stingray, Trracer and Automag RT have been re-done, along with a couple things like splats. These were recorded in 48khz, so crank your audio options up to 48khz for best results. Since I know a lot of people are picky about changes, the new sounds are currently optional. - To obtain the new sounds, run the full install. - To stick with the old sounds, you must have an older version then run the update.
There is not currently a Linux client release because my Linux install auto-hosed itself again and I can't even get the game to run due to driver issues, but you should be able to use the server update, in theory. The executable is the same, but it may or may not run properly.
The exploit fix is only available on the Linux server update. Unfortunately I don't have the time or necessary tools to rebuild the Windows packages. If you run a dedicated Windows server or can't update for whatever reason, there is a workaround available. Add the following to your commands.txt file before the "EOF": "specinvite 250".
Enough reading - head on over to the files page, grab build 20, and enjoy some super-fast map downloads! (At least if you're playing on an updated server).