I think the question everyone wants to ask, is the gold alien module/tools next? Also, what exactly is the portal? And what else is in the works for TWGS? [8)]

John - Thanks for finally getting V.56 out. It has been a long wait but will be worth it. The Alien Fig Bug has been driving us crazy ever since V.54; our Corp has lost billions of credits worth of sector defence figs to that bug on Game "B" at Hugh Mitchell's "Doctor on Board" BBS.

I just want to say thank you too. It has been a long haul, but well worth the wait, as I am sure everyone feels. I am excited about the new engine coming in the future as well. Keep up the good work, and although most of us know you, but don't really "know you", you are well appriciated in the TW Community.

System78 is running the new version. Works great!

Where is the Global Mail Delete option. Been searching for it but can't find it...

quote:Originally posted by outlaw78

Where is the Global Mail Delete option. Been searching for it but can't find it...

That global mail delete is a in game mail option for players.

Players now can type : and answer the delete prompt with a y and your mail is gone.

Thanks again John , fine work here [^]


Vid's World on Guam
http://geocities.com/videotees/twars.html
telnet://vidsworld.no-ip.org:2002
http://vidkid.coastgames.com/index.php <--- Register & Request Games

quote:Originally posted by rompca

System78 is running the new version. Works great!


Much faster, did you turn the aliens off? If so they must be set to too high of levels and are generating too many aliens.

No but removing TWMAIL seemed to fix a lot of things (per a suggestion from JP). One of them must have been corrupt and causing the NONPSERV to max out the CPU, which was what was causing the slowdown. It was never a bandwidth issue.

(offtopic) I'm playtesting Game E for more server bugs... but my name is "romper (sysop)" so everyone should be aware. No, I'm not using TEdit.

Oh and pressing ":" does work for global mail delete. Great option!!! (I hate when I have too much from my grid and have to go through it all again because I missed the delete prompt.) [:D]

quote:Originally posted by xblack_knightx

I think the question everyone wants to ask, is the gold alien module/tools next? Also, what exactly is the portal? And what else is in the works for TWGS? [8)]


I can't make any promises about that. I'm trying to move beyond the current game and do some new things. If I can provide that feature without creating a whole new host of bugs, I will try to do that. But if I am able to port TWv3 to a new engine, one with a much more object-based architecture, it would be much easier just to hold that functionality off for that version. So basically, it's still up in the air.

By Portal, I assume you mean JumpGate? JumpGate is an automated game listing service for TWGS gameops. I'm still trying to get it running for TWGS and classic TW, and then I want to expand it for any new versions of the game I release.

As for the future of TWGS, I want to generalize it so that it can run other games, both new versions of TW and even other games I or others might develop. The new engine I'm developing will be general enough to support a wide range of game designs, both text-based and graphical.

What I'd like to know is the bubble bug fixed and port bugs fixed?

as far as i know they are ready to go

quote:Originally posted by Ahab

What I'd like to know is the bubble bug fixed and port bugs fixed?

They should be.

I dont know if this is the appropriate location to post my comments, so if not, please move to wherever they best fit. . .

First off, thanks for the update - some of the issues fixed will be really nice; that being said, I do not think that the modifications made to globals access is really a 'fix' - not having access to ss/fed/status/who's online for many of the prompts is very very much annoying. I believe (I could be wrong) that the limitations of the globals access was to eliminate the ability to use certain bugs; unfortunately, many of the 'game-ruining' bugs, are not fixed by these particular restrictions. This being the case, the bugs that WERE 'eliminated' are for the most part unknown, and usually easily spotted; ie, they weren't really necessary to fix. The afore-mentioned 'game-ruining' bugs, on the other hand, while still unfixed, are sometimes very difficult to spot if used by a discreet player.

In addition, these changes have really hosed a lot of scripts. While I can understand the desire to limit the effectiveness of scripting (although I dont agree with it), it seems that there is a better way of doing it, rather than just breaking them. As my good friend rev put it, "there seems to be a bug with globals - they aren't global anymore".

You've mentioned that you do not intend to do any major architectural changes to v3. I have a feeling that fixing the synchronization issues constitutes a 'major' rewrite of certain sections. That being the case, I think the majority of players would rather have access to the globals anywhere and risk letting a few losers use bugs, rather than have to rewrite their scripts, and not have globals access at key locations, like terra. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks!

My goal with this change is to throw it out there and then listen to people's requests for prompts that have a legitimate need for globals. For example, I don't see a problem with having globals from Terra. But in general, I don't see any legitimate reason to allow most globals from things like "Y/N" prompts.

If the only thing that is broken by this change is scripts, then I'm not going to worry about it. There will be some who complain about this, but many more who applaud it. So if you want to have globals at a particular prompt, then make your case. But if you're just going to conclude that any change here is bad, I just don't agree.

The mistake isn't fixing this behavior now. The mistake was in not doing it right in the first place. At the time, I never envisioned these kinds of uses, the kind of scripting that is common today. Now that I see how it is being used, I would rather fix the global behavior, even though there are active scripts that will be broken. I normally try very hard not to make any change that will break scripts or helpers, but I can't allow scripts to hold the game hostage, making it impossible to fix critical gameplay problems.

I have said that I want to keep this game true to its classic gameplay. Globals are not a part of that. Scripts are not a part of that. These are relatively new things, and I don't count them among the things that I consider "untouchable" in this version of the game.