July 28th, 2004DPCon2 UpateOk, we have a set date now. DPCon will be held on August 21st and 22nd. Sign-in and setup starts at 2:00PM. That's pretty soon, so hurry up and sign up if you want to go. We also have the DPCon 2.0 Summary Page up. Check that for all the pertinent information.
It also looks like we have a GeForce FX donated for one of the prizes. FourthX is planning to bring his DJ equipment, so we'll have some pretty kickin' music going on as well. Be sure to check out #ApexGameServers on IRC.EnterTheGame.Com -- our sponsors for this cool stuff. July 25th, 2004DPCon 2.0!It's back and better than ever! Do you want to meet the developers of Paintball2 as well as a bunch of people you've played with online? Here's your chance: Digital Paint Conference 2.0 - a LAN party for Paintball2 and then some!
We'll be doing all kinds of cool stuff - tournaments, pickup games, real life paintball, and possibly some clan matches, plus there will be some exclusive sneak peeks at new maps and game modes.
You'll get to show everyone what you're really made of -- no lag, no cheaters, no lamers, none of that stuff that plagues online play. Also, you'll have a chance to get revenge on all those chair commandos when we go out to play real paintball.
Here's how it works. If you're interested, sign up and pick a date in August that's good for you. We'll probably start it on the 21st unless it conflicts with too many people's schedules. If you need a ride or a roommate, check out the transportation and rooming threads.
Bringing your own computer is optional, however it's a good idea to do so in order to make sure we have enough equipment for everyone. Check out the DPCon 2.0 thread for more details. I'll have a page set up soon with directions and other specifics. Be sure to spread the news and check back for updates! June 7th, 2004DPL Returns!The Digital Paintball League is returning under completely new management for what we hope will be a great summer season. We are signing up a total of 8 clans for a 6-week regular season, followed by a short playoff season. If your clan can field at least 4 members per match, and you are serious about playing every week for 6 weeks, head on over to the DPL site, read the rules and then sign up your team. Only serious clans need apply. May 30th, 2004What's in the Works - Client Messages and CausticsThere probably won't be a whole lot that will change in the way of eye candy for the next client release. For the most part I've been working on server side updates (as mentioned in the previous post) and tweaking the way the client and server talk to each other in order to reduce bandwidth.
One of the nice things about the way I'm handling messages is that it gives me control on the client side as to what I do with the information. For example, the first screenshot below shows item pickups and drops. Instead of displaying "You picked up a Trracer." or "You dropped your Automag." it scrolls the item names up on the bottom of the screen then fades them out -- no more cluttering the console (though the smart people probably have "msg" set to 1 so they don't see item pickups anyway). It conveniently uses about 1/20th of the bandwidth the old messages did, too.
I'm planning to do a lot with this. For example, I could have the team chat messages and regular chat messages in different locations, or be different colors. I could possibly display abbreviated elimination messages like Half-Life does, etc. I'd like to have a separate chat window which shows only the chat messages (so you don’t have to scroll through the mess in the console). Another big thing will be the client side scoreboard. It won't have to be cut off when there are a lot of people playing due to bandwidth restrictions and overflow problems. Once I get everything implemented it will be easy to change, and I'll probably have some client side settings. Getting everything implemented and working properly is taking a wile, though, so have patience.
Of course I will be throwing in some eye candy, too. I used this cool caustics generator to make some realistic animated caustics textures and combined them with some RScript effects to yield some very nice results. I still have some bugs to work out, though. Eventually I'll be making some awesome pixel shader effects for the water surface as well.
E3As some of you know, Calrathan and I went to E3 this year. It was pretty cool, but not quite what we were hoping for. We were looking forward to talking to a bunch of game developers and such, but it ended up being more like a giant, electronic Disneyland. I've started my report on my websitehere. Calrathan doesn't have internet at his summer place yet, so you'll have to wait to see his view of it. April 19th, 2004What's in the Works -- New Rotation SystemI’m putting the client off to the side a bit and cranking away at the game code. For once I’m actually decreasing the length of the TODO list. Well, it’s been going up and down, but overall it’s decreasing. Whenever I work on this game, I end up finding more things that need to be done than I end up getting done, but that’s finally starting to change. I’m fixing tons of little things that have bugged me, such as the 2nd flag appearing on the stand when someone is holding it at the round end. Of course in fixing that, I found a couple more bugs that needed to be fixed, but I think those are all straightened out.
One of the biggest features in the next release will be the new rotation system. It allows for 3 things: map voting, multiple modes of play for each map, and minimum/maximum player limits. The map votes are cumulative – they stay with the map until it is played, then they are reset for that map. Each map gets a vote automatically, causing them to cycle in the typical rotation. However, when someone votes for a map, it will bump it up about one position in the rotation. If a bunch of people vote for it, it will move up several positions.
The game modes also work in a similar fashion. Mapinfo files define the supported game modes for each map as well as the default game mode(s). The default gets an auto vote, but players can also vote for other supported modes. When you vote for something like Midnight, you can choose to play it in straight Elimination mode, CTF mode, 1-Flag mode, or even Deathmatch. If more than one default is defined, the map will end up cycling between the different modes each time it is played.
Players can also vote for maps that aren’t in the rotation, and they will be added temporarily, but they won’t get auto votes, so they won’t cycle. In other words, several people have to vote for the map in order to push it to the top of the list, where it will get played, then removed. Similarly, for remote admins, maps can be remotely (permanently) added and removed from the maplist via the “rotation” command. Maplists can also be remotely loaded and saved.
The min/max player limits are pretty simple. They’re also defined by the mapinfo files. At the end of a match, the map with the most votes is loaded if the number of people on the server is within the min and max limits defined by the mapinfo files. If not, it traverses down the list until it finds a suitable match. This will reduce the problem of 20 people playing on a tiny map like pbcup, or 2 people playing on a huge map like brainstorm. It will allow server admins to have a wide variety of maps in rotation without worrying about there being too many or too few people to play a particular map.
Also in the works are some methods to reduce lag. For example, the game will check if anybody actually needs equipment dropped by an eliminated player. If not, it is removed/returned immediately. If everyone already has a 200 round hopper, there’s no sense in throwing another one into the middle of a firefight. Another thing I plan on doing is to use encoded (much smaller) messages for things like eliminations as well as make the scoreboard clientside.
One more thing, for those of you who have actually read this far, I’m planning on adding a new game mode: King of the Hill. In a nutshell, the team that stays on the hill the longest wins, but there might be some fun little twists to make it more interesting. I might also add another mode – it’s a secret, but I have the feeling it’ll be a kick.