Birth of Legends

This has been fairly depressing. My updates have gone from 3-a-day to once a week. Basically, my personal computer won't start anymore so I'm using the server computer to update the site and check email, meaning that it hasn't made it to Jon's house and therefore isn't online. I am hoping to change this in the very near future.

-Mark

So, now for a mroe hopeful update. There are now two BOL servers; one which Verizon is blocking but I can still use for dev testing, and the other one that is currently half-open to the public. So let me explain. All the ports are open to the public except for the web port which public users need to be able to connect. I'm working on this but this isn't a problem with anyone blocking the port, rather a me not having direct access to the router this box is plugged into. So I'll keep you all updated and we might see things being online by tomorrow, though I can't promise anything as all of my promises tend to go against me.

-Mark

[Edit2:] For those of you with dll problems or errors use this to aid you. These will also make it work on windows 98 and 2000. That is all.[/Edit2]

[Edit:] I made a mistake in the config file. So, now it's updated again and will actually work now. Sorry for those of you who had this problem. The links are the same.[/Edit]

Wow, I'm able to keep a promise, hooray! Ok, so here is the deal, because of my sad computer situation I am not currently able to play. But, all of you should be able to, so you can tell me what works, what doesn't work, and so forth. I've updated online.rar so that it goes to the correct location. If you don't want to redownload the whole thing and just update your config files then do that. Just so your warned, here are some potential bugs that you may encounter in your journeys; you may create a username and it tell you you don't have priveledges to log in (solution: tell me and I'll fix it), you may see that someone's name isn't shown correctly and instead comes up as "Entity###" (solution: tell me, send me the log, and I try to fix it), or you might get bored because no one is online (solution: get me to a computer that can play the demo and I'll entertain you). There's bound to be lots of more errors and bugs with the server/client system so your help testing things out is much appreciated. Fixing things will be a little slow because motherboard issues have limited me down to 256 mb of ram, so compiling new builds to fix bugs is very hard to do. Not to worry though, I'm working on it.

-Mark

So here is the status of life: Everyone can connect and play fine. But, the server is having a problem with updating people. I probably need to recompile a part of the server, but that will take some time as I need to find a computer to compile it on. But you can still have fun because if someone else logs in or is on when you are you can still see them, they just won't move. :)

-Mark

There is a very good reason for me not updating anything yet. That reason is; I haven't used my computer for the last 36 hours. So, granted, I have yet to take the three hours it takes 256 ram to compile a simple program with debugging information and then upload it to the server. I know where the general area of this problem is occuring but I don't know why. Anyway, when I get home from school today I should have enough time to accomplish that. In the meantime the server is still up for those of you who wish to be online.

-Mark

[Edit2:] It's time for the next round of testing. I'm not sure whether it's actually fixed or not (can't test it myself), but things do appear to be working again at the moment. Sorry for my slowness, I was dragged to a college fair which was unexpected and longer than enticipated. I'm not sure how much more work I can get done tonight, we'll see. If you get an error message 13 then what I tried didn't work, otherwise, it did. And I'm not sure if this fix fixes everything or not, so sadly snowballs might not be seen. Enjoy testing! [/Edit2]

[Edit:] I now kind of know what was going wrong, so I'm going to first eat supper and then get to work on it. In the meantime you guys can try and set a new record for players on at the same time (right now the record is two). I'll post here or email people individually when I'm ready for more tests. [/Edit]

Here's the deal; The part of the server that seemed to be having the problems has been recompiled. Packets are being sniffed. So, now all that's missing is people trying to play. If the problems from before are still happening I'll hopefully be able to figure out where the packets are going.

-Mark

I'm sorry for how outrageously long this is taking. I'm doing a lot of compiling to get everything talking properly again, and that takes a long time with only 256 mb of ram, so try to be patient. Maybe I'll be able to make some cool screenshots on another computer while waiting for it to compile...

-Mark

Oh, and before I forget: A special thanks goes out to videoguy217 who has continued to help by even trying to log in when I didn't ask him to. Thanks also to Achenar who has helped out a little.

[Edit:] Just realized that people who hadn't seen the post like 10 posts ago don't know where to download the current demo. I'll fix the download page sometime soon, and here it is. For those of you who have dlls problems and don't want to redownload online.rar just download these. [/Edit]

There hasn't been much updating lately so I thought I should. I'm taking a look at the core engine now for the networking stuff to try and figure out what is wrong. What I'm wondering is if nothing is wrong and it's just not working anyway, but there isn't any good way for me to know. If I can't get anything to work within the next week then I'll consider totally rewriting all network code with network code from an actual engine like Raknet or something, but I don't really want to spend the time that that would require. On another note I still have been unable to find the warranty papers, and because of that I'm going to try out a usb-mouse on wednesday to see if that will bypass the ps2 port problem. If it will then updates will be faster again because I'll be able to comiple everything in a much much shorter time. Today I'll just be reviewing code and animating, because that is fun. That is all.

-Mark

Here's the deal with the forum; Over the past two days the forums has been hit really hard with spam bots posting, and I can't find an easy way to turn off guest, so I'm just going to lock the whole forum for a little while until this matter is settled. Posting comments here or emailing me will be the only way to communicate for at least today.

-Mark

So, today I haven't been able to use my computer. I tried starting up the computer with a usb mouse to no avail. Then, I scoured the internet to a solution to my problem. I found lots of explanations, none which turned out to work or be true. I switched ram, cleared bios (which worked once but then wouldn't start up again), swapped graphics cards, and basically found out through testing that absolutely nothing hardware related is wrong (though ps2 port failure is still a possibility). Sometime when I find the desire to waste more time I'll clear the cmos again and try to use different settings. Naturally, as you may have guessed, I haven't been able to work on BOL at all today, and very little yesterday. I'll check on the server but as far as I know it should still be up (yet not fully functional, blah). I'm done ranting.

-Mark

So, in case your wondering, my computer still isn't working correctly. I got it to work once, and then made the mistake of shutting it off. There is something seriously wrong with one of the connections though I've lost all patience to figure out which one. On a better note, I've figured out a way to get the server to work properly, though I still don't know what was wrong in the first place. The bad side about this is that it will take some time as I need to rewrite a big part of the code for the network (I'm implementing a different server solution from another game, that I can integrate with what I have already written). What will make this slow is that my time with my 256 megs of ram is divided between BOL and another project right now which I'll post a link to later once it's closer to completion. And that's about it.

-Mark

[Edit:] BOL is down for a few days, as I've just learned. A battery died (not sure where or what exactly). Just so you know.[/Edit]

Today wasn't completely a bust but I got very little done, in the way of BOL that is. I started and finished a quarterly project for english class that is due tomorrow, and that took some time as I hadn't read the book yet. Not to mention of course that my computer rebooted in the middle of paragraph five and I hadn't saved it at all yet. Good times. But that's all behind me now. Just so you know I am working on things but it keeps taking longer because today I was working on three projects besides school stuff like english. I'll finish the recoding project soon hopefully, and maybe have a new screenshot or two, and actually change/fix the downloads page, and the developer's page, and fix the wiki part of the site, and fix the forum, and make another movie...but all in good time.

-Mark

So here is an update on what's happening:
Forum: Is back up. Only registered users can post but anyone can view it. I'll work with videoguy on other fixes later.

Server: This is still down. Is scheduled to be fixed by monday. I'm doing a lot of coding today and hopefully will have some positive results by then.

Wiki: I haven't looked at it in a while. Maybe I'll work on getting users to work with it again (though I may need to fix the forum first so that people don't need to register twice).

Website: I have in mind to update many many things and maybe even add in a java application or two that I made at school, but that won't happen today. One thing I might update today is the developer section, as it would be nice to have more content to add in.

School: I'm done with projects for a while, and I have quaterlies all next week, which means that I'll have less homework and more free time to do stuff. So, hopefully I'll stop being lazy and get on with something.

Movies: As some of you know, I've been spending some time with Lordclark Productions and making movies. Now, I won't link to that site yet as I've made some big mistakes on the pages and it doesn't at all look good, but just so you know that will be forthcoming (it will be updated weekly with different funny raw footage that will later be made into a movie. Some animated movies are also in the works and will be shown there too.).

That about wraps things up. So I have work to do, no ram to waste, and some eating to do.

-Mark

I hope everyone reading this has had the benefit of one extra hour this weekend, I know I sure enjoyed mine. Anyway, here is an update:

Server: The part that needs replacing hasn't come in yet but will probably come in tomorrow. So, it will be up soon if ups comes on time.

Wiki: I still haven't looked at it.

School: I have both my physics and calculus quarterly tomorrow. Orcs!

Movies: I'm having fun with animating. Still nothing of quality that I wish to show, but something will turn up someday.

And that's all for monday the 30th.

-Mark