CODING CODING CODING CODING TESTING TESTING CODING CODING CODING TEA SMOKE CODING CODING

Cursing the lack of a decent set of hooks in battle.php... I can hook into the part where the battle starts, the part where there players wins or loses, and the part where the page is shown that depicts a battle. I can't hook in between rounds of combat. So, if you hit "To the death," there's no way for me of knowing how many rounds of combat actually ran, hence how many points to add to your implant experience.

So, you know what I'm doing?

I'm making an invisible buff, with no effect and a thousand rounds. Then, in the sodding fightnav-specialties hook, I'm looking at how many rounds are left in the buff and subtracting that from a thousand to get me my number to perform the relevant experience calculations. And I'm doing this in the hook where I'm supposed to be just putting in the links to activate the implant, because if I do it elsewhere, the information contained in those links (showing the points you have to spend and so on) is a page load out of date.

GRRR.

Head-Mounted Laser implant mostly done, except for the mechanism that sets your hair on fire. Testing now.

Can we see this, please? Just leave in stuff that gets players banned, if it's not TOO bad, and have a few heads on pikes in the City or Common Ground descriptions. Game description could be something like "The long-suffering citizens of (outpost) finally had enough assholishness from JerkPlayer, and have placed his head on a pole. Let this be a warning to other would-be jerks." Please? Pretty please? Nothing says "Survivalist Mentality" like a few well placed heads on pikes. And it would be an example to others.

Nope. This is not that sort of game.

You could also get rid of "To the death" and "Until current enemy dies". Honestly I use both of them way too often; I think that the combination of the very powerful clan buffs and my concerted effort to build up permanent HP has gotten me to the point where I almost can't lose. I accidentally fought a day with just fists, having sold one weapon and forgotten to go back and get its replacement, and I actually had to start paying attention to what I was doing. But then I went to Sheila's and bought the weapon I was looking for (the awesome Cat Launcher) and since then I have been essentially invincible against anything I've found in the jungle. I usually play with a Riot Hammer, and even that's pretty much unbeatable unless I end up facing a crowd of very high-level opponents.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you're using either option at the beginning of a fight, you're too powerful. Perhaps hitting T or U to finish off an opponent is handy, but you could also do 5 or 1. So if it made the coding dramatically easier, I'd vote to just eliminate them.

It would make things a little easier, but not by much - remember, hitting 5 or 1 doesn't necessarily result in five or ten rounds of combat, because the creature could die after two or three rounds. I've still got to have some way of keeping track of how many rounds of combat have been fought.

Good afternoon, gentlemen!

As you can see, in light of recent events I have grown so large that I've taught myself English! Jolly good, I say.

On behalf of my esteemed host, I must warn you all that Season Two may be delayed slightly. You see, the silly old chap has been trying to play a sort of whack-a-mole game with the two young whippersnappers he most recently banned, and all this "drama" nonsense is beginning to get to him. It's all taking up the time that he would have spent writing his code on that infernal machine of his, you see. Quite sad, quite sad indeed, what what?

So, if you happen to know either of the two young ruffians involved, do us all a favour and send them one of those electrical letters that all the young ones are into these days, and try to jolly well talk some sense into them! The longer they make nuisances of themselves, the longer it'll take for Season Two to be finished, don't you know!

On behalf of my esteemed host, have a jolly good evening! Pip pip!

Your humble servant,

-Caveman Joe's Ulcer

Jesus tap-dancing rollerskating Christ on a crutch.
You made me spit food! And scotch!
So freaking funny.
And the image. Priceless.

(Also a bit of Fight Club: "I am CavemanJoe's Ulcer...")

Happy Friday, lads!

~CTP

Head-Mounted Laser implant is functional and working well, as is the Chemical Pack implant. Tesla Frame implant has become much more powerful but correspondingly harder to use, and will have a high DK requirement. All three have had their text and colours smartened up.

Gonna need some beta-testers before too long.

Is "beta testers" a code-phrase for "targets"?

Yes, but don't tell the others that. It's a secret.

I'm quite pleased with how much I've gotten done, today... It's nice to have a break from the drama. Maybe it's 'cause it's the weekend. The only thing I've had so far is one of the banned players popping up and pretending to be an angry "Little Person" (his words). I'm playing along for now. Could be quite amusing.

Let me at the little bugger! By Zeus' beard, I shall DEVOUR him!

*pats belly*

Patience, my pretty. Patience.

< Passes CMJ a fresh bottle of Maalox (tm) >

I do believe CMJ's Ulcer has the makings of what could be simultaneously the best and the worst animated character ever. And I do believe Dan's nailed the voice.
Anyone have some flash skills and time on...their...hands? Wait. Forgot who I was talking to.
~CTP

CTP, you're bloody lucky I'm so busy with Season Two, or I'd do that.

Cleaned up the Spatial Awareness implant. This one, since it complements your existing combat skills, is going into Season Two largely unchanged apart from some new flavour text, code cleanup, fixed colours, and a new title (spaTial awareness, rather than spaCial awareness - yeah, it's a daft spelling, but it's the correct one, apparently).

Spacial is acceptable, but it is the less common spelling. Spatial is preferred.
Good on you for doing that.
Also, sorry to hear we won't be seeing CMJ's Ulcer doing a song and dance number anytime soon.

Zeus' beard!
He is the very model of a model ulcer-ay-she-on.

~CTP

Inputting the proposed changes into my to-do list software; the list of stuff is just getting too long.

For those interested, I use ToDoList by AbstractSpoon. I used to use MyLifeOrganized, but ToDoList is open-source, so there was no bloody contest once I'd found out about ToDoList.

I've been putting in time estimates for each thing that I want to do, and it reckons I'm looking at 153.08 hours of work so far.

I've not even told it about the sodding plotline yet. That's gonna be the real kicker.

Or the vending machines, come to think of it...

If it's textual assets you need, consider crowd-sourcing to the users.
I'll happily edit text, and pass on to you.
If it's programming, well, this is well outside my skillset, so good luck with that.
Always be alert for opportunities to outsource labor (labour) to your fanbase (faaahnbayse).

Cuz, you know, they care.
And stuff.

~CTP

Sorry mate, the writing is the bit I enjoy the most.

Well yeah, me too.
Point is, you want it to scale out. And no one's stopping you from writing (nor should they. Your bits are really really good).
But it's starting to be a big world. And at some point (probably not now, but in the next year or two) what I'm suggesting might make more sense.

I guess my perspective is that you have some improbably good writers in game, and from a business perspective, tapping that asset might not be a bad idea. From a stickiness perspective, UGC gives players a sense of ownership (I helped build that, I did!), and they want to hang around to see their stuff in action.

As we say in Oregon, just saying is all.

~CTP