BIG UPDATE!

(Screenshots galore await!)


This week has been pure adrenaline, and I couldn't be happier about its outcome (sans a few bugs :P). All I can say to everyone who has even uttered any words about Skirmish Online is, "thank you so much". Skirmish is finally starting to become a real game, and I'm literally dripping with pride for what me and Draffurd have wrought with our bare hands. [smile]


Introducing our newest contestant: The Master Server

So far we've been using a temporary system of sorts for game hosting. I would compile two different executables from the source: one that acts as a server that people can connect to, and a client that connects to the hardcoded server address. This has been fine for our smaller tests and alpha romps, but now we need to allow everyone and anyone to be able to host their own games.

I decided to do this in the rather popular manner of having a master server: a program which holds a listing of all games currently being hosted by players, thus supplying the address of where to connect to players looking to join a game and keeping everyone playing interconnected. This also meant a system to hold player accounts. An account holds a whole medley of nice data, like player aliases (each a unique character), which all have their own name, scores, and other goodies. This allows people to unify all of their characters under one common account, and makes it easier for the banning system to get rid of dilenquients as well. [smile]


(Logging in!)


(Hosting a game!)


(Looking for a game to play..)

There were, however, a few bugs with the master server that need to be patched up. Players who leave a game cannot rejoin it again, for some reason. And leaving the game and restarting the game will disallow you from logging in again. Strange ones, but I'll get 'em. The other [humourous] bug is that I forgot to cler the game data every time you launch a game, since previously every game only got launched once. This means that maps will load data on top of previous maps, making for respawn points inside walls, objects in very strange places, and other weird occurances. Not to mention eating more precious system resources. [sad]


And the testing session: New Graphics, New Map, and WALL SHADOWS!

Oh man, was last night amazing. Although the number of people available on MSN to play was rather sparse, our 5-person game last night was simply astounding. It made me realize the whole reason why me and Draffurd started to make this thing in the first place. The hour and a half flew by. Bullets flew across the map, explosions rung out in the hallways, and corpses flew across the map in large overkills. [grin]

And of course, the screenshots of Draffurd's awesome new graphics, and kickarse map, "Chaos Castle". (He wanted to name it "Cozy Castle", but I had to put my foot down!)


(Takin' out the trash.)


('Naded in the parking lot!)


(Beaten, but revenge via claymore. >:))


(Skirmish Online's first triple kill :D)


(More general pandemonium)


(Tonight's cast.. (sans the early-leaving Ravuya))


(More mushy) Thanks!

Once again, I thank everyone who has worked on the game, helped test the game, offered me words of wisdom/praise, or just that visit my journal. You've all been of huge motivation and help. I feel like I'm giving a speech upon the game's completion, but we're still a long ways off from that. But heck, I've got to celebrate each of the steps along the way; they are the most important of all. :)

Thanks everyone for helping make Skirmish what it is (becoming!) today. :D