hawkaloogie

SSXA A Small WarZone Dev <- be there I'm shooting for a mid-late January release to a production server. Thank sknox for the hosting and motivating me to put my hat back into the ring. It just won't stay dead.

Okay, you've convinced me. Admin creates account on website, gives arena information, gives bot IP address, gets arena ID Admin gives arena ID to bot configuration, starts bot Bot connects to stat server Bot gives a hello that provides definitions of the achievements tracked by the bot (achievement ID and title) Admin can now give descriptions and icons to the achievements Bot begins sending progress reports to the stat server I'm going to do some experimenting with the stat server itself (separate from the site, having to do HTTP requests for each progress report would be bad. Perhaps I should call it the stat responder). I should have something ready for comments soon.

So instead of sending raw stats to the server to be processed, the bot/plugin sends to the site what achievements the user is gaining progress on or completed? The only issue I have with this is the amount of programming it adds. Instead of one site doing everything except gathering stats, you've got multiple pieces of code each doing everything. Instead of a small, simple bot/plugin, you've got a more complicated one that has to do more work (figure out what achievements it's tracking, load progress from storage, check all achievements as events come in). The harder things are on the bot/plugin developers, the less likely they're going to do this. I'm also not convinced that this is the best way to go about things. The amount and variety of the data you'd have to keep in-memory is intense: Total kills Kills in a Warbird Kills of a Warbird in a Warbird Kills of a Warbird in a Warbird with a bullet Total deaths Deaths in a Warbird Deaths in a Warbird killed by a Warbird Deaths in a Warbird killed by a Warbird with a bullet If you just send the data, throw it in a decently optimized database (in-memory tables even), run a couple SQL queries (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM kills WHERE playerId=? AND playerShip=? AND targetShip=?), and you have your answer. (though I admit it's completely possible that I see my way as simpler because its the way I've done things for years.) How about both? Sending data for every *watchdamage or *watchgreen item, weapons packet or position packet would be insane. For these things it would be better for the bot to keep track of only what it needed to keep track of (perhaps sending aggregate numbers to the site on a regular basis, how much damage the user did, how many reps they've used, etc...). But, keeping track of all the variations and nuances on the bot side would be equally insane. So send that data to the server. The server can keep a database and run reports and do all it needs to, sending the bot progress reports as necessary. So the bot/plugin can keep track of its own achievements, can send stats to the site, or can do both depending on what the author wants. We can also then cut down how much and how specific the data the site gets, instead focusing on aggregate and long-term data (do 1,000,000 points of damage, for example). Of course, the bot/plugin would not need to send any data it didn't care about. Are there any issues with this?

Stability and performance are major goals, which is why I want the bot/plugin to do as little actual work as possible. For example: The bot won't calculate if a user was within "X" tiles of a flag, it will just send all of the flag positions to the server and have the server figure it out. The bot isn't required to send events real-time, but can queue and send a batch whenever it wants. The web server can be optimized and we can throw more hardware at it, the zone server is already under strain and the bot is already doing a lot (keeping track of game, all the other plugins, etc...). It goes without saying that there will always be bugs, but I hope that the bugs will be mostly in the web site, not in the bot/plugin.

Right now I'm leaning towards having different "profiles" of statistics. A bot could say "I'm capable of the 'low' profile of statistics", whereas an AS3 plugin could say "I'm capable of the 'high' profile of statistics". This would be reported to the site to help zone admins with making their achievements. It will also aid in the development and adoption processes. Not reporting a profile would degrade gracefully, the site just won't know what the bot is capable of and may present some options to the admin that are not possible. The calculations for the achievements will happen (from my current view, subject to better ideas) server-side. The server will let the bot know what it needs to know when it wants to know (from now on I'll just be saying "bot" to mean "the consumer of the XMLRPC interface"). In a coincidental discovery, I stumbled across all of my SS bots. Not sure how useful they will be (they're based on an old version of Cerium's hybrid core using the AlphaSpawn frontend), but I might be able to throw together a working reference plugin for the 'low' profile. For security, I was figuring on using HTTPS for transport with some GUIDs for verification. I can't do foolproof, but if someone else can I will be interested. I've started a project on Google Code. Nothing there right now, of course, but I'll start putting design documents and images there shortly. http://code.google.com/p/sstag (reading back over these posts I can see where a lot of things aren't being described clearly. perhaps the more formal documents I'm drawing up with alleviate this)

From the start, again, this has nothing to do with points. In fact, has nothing to with any kind of blanket applied over the zones. As you mentioned, zones are so incredibly diverse as to make any single set of achievements irrelevant. The idea is an opt-in, per-arena service. An admin says "Hm... I would like to add achievements to my arena." They register on the site, there is a verification process, and they are given some code (all F/OSS) in the form of an AS3 plugin or bot plugin or otherwise. They set up the code, enter in their security configuration information, and the bot starts sending statistics to the site. Meanwhile, the arena admin is making achievements for their arena only. So, if I were a Chaos pub admin, I could make a "weenie roaster" achievement for those people who kill 50-60 bty ships while they are over 100 bty. If I were a Warzone league admin, I could make a "daredevil" achievement for those people who kill 10+ peole while holding all 8 flags. The achievements are relevant only to the arena they are created for, though some method of exporting/importing/sharing achievements between arenas would be feasible. Only the website itself would be centralized. Much like stats.svnzone.com (which is wonderful) but any zone can join. The Premier 4v4 league bot is capable of a LOT of statistics gathering, but I have no idea how. AFAIK it might be capable of most of the stats that I would need, but I don't know if it would be able to be adapted to other arenas. Most would be good, just some would be enough, all would be best. The capability of the arena's stats plugin will govern the types of achievements (and the wacky achievements are the fun ones, "Get 10 kills without a death" is mundane, "Get 10 kills without using a Rep, Burst, Thor, Brick, Portal, Decoy, or Rocket" is much more fun). I'm not here to replace existing bots. I remember too well the politics of SubSpace to attempt any such doomed mission. The system could be used for more than I'm describing, but any well-designed system is capable of features not anticipated or intended. I'm not here to change the world. I'll have an XML DTD for request and response shortly, then I can work on some template mockups and diagrams to perhaps better describe how this will work.

I'm sure search does wonders, but I don't see the relevance of either topic. This hasn't anything to do with the in-game points (though that could be one of the stats gathered). My goal is achievements. Like Xbox360 games, Steam games, some PS3 games. The statistics will make achievements possible, and while I have the data I might as well do something useful with it (like give it away to whomever wants it for whatever reason).

After a rather long hiatus, the person who was formerly known as both "sknox" and "deadpigeon" (he knows who he is...) has gotten me back into SubSpace. Cutting to the chase: I want to implement a centralized (not a dirty word) statistics-gathering website. Be it useful or for my own amusement, I care not. The biggest goals for this project will be the immense scope of the statistics gathered, and the inclusion of Achievements. The lesser goals are syndication, SSTags, and re-branding for hosted zone solutions. Because of the statistics I want (a complete snapshot of the player's ship when they kill, die, pick flag, pick ball, drop flag, shoot ball, or game ends), I think that this idea will only work as an AS3 plugin. Questions I have: 1) How capable are the SS bots these days? Would there be a way to get a complete snapshot of a player's ship at a precise moment (keeping in mind there may be many such moments each second)? 2) How many SSC zones are using AS3? 3) What do the zone admins want in terms of statistics-gathering and Achievements? My goal is to have zone/arena admins create their own achievements based on the statistics gathered using an interface on the website. 4) Am I completely off my rocker? 5) And just who exactly do I think I am, really? Some ideas of achievements I've had: - Mother Hen (get 50 kills within 20 tiles of dropped flags) - Kamikaze (make an enemy kill you and one of their teammates 10 times) - Fortune Favors the Bold (kill an enemy with less than 100 energy left 5 times) - Quick Reflexes (kill an enemy with their "warp flash" active [decloak or warp] 5 times) - Z-Ray Eye (kill an enemy while cloaked and stealthed 10 times) - AFKilla (kill an enemy who does not move or shoot 50 times) I'm not going to add some lofty bullshit about "bringing people back to subspace", or "getting new people hooked". The point of this is to make subspace more fun for those currently playing and to add some variety and spice where things may be stagnating. Plus, everybody else has achievements, why can't we? Feel free to ask any questions, offer any suggestions, or offer any help. I would need some programmers for the AS3 plugin or bots (if a bot can indeed be used). Further implementation details will be fleshed out in a more appropriate setting. Perl programmers and web designers would be great too. Feel free to leave me a message in-game if you want to be added to the list of people who can help.

you can't *kill a person who's left the zone (I tried) and *kill works on nicknames, not IP addresses or MacIDs or anything else, so a person annoyingly using your zone to register an SSC nickname every 10 seconds can't be stopped with *kill (again, I tried)

Wasn't planning on banning from any zone other than my own, don't really care. I'll talk to yarekim then. [edit] Apologies for not doing things the Right Way™. I didn't expect to need BanG, and I wasn't handed a manual when ASWZ was reopened

I'm the current sysop of SSCX A Small WarZone and I've been having problems with a person who seems to like creating nicknames using my zone. The IP address (when I can catch it using *info) is [EDIT: IP removed due to possible abuse of it] Because of my status, am I eligible to get a BanG account? I know some of my players have them (or had them when Divine.216 was sysop). I'd like to be able to prevent an attack against my zone if it comes to it. I don't want to keep telling my users that I'm impotent to do anything about the annoyance that comes from not being able to prevent certain types of attacks. Otherwise, is there another way to do it? I've attached a log with some usernames and some *info replies (the ones I was able to make before the person left).

Perhaps since the shark is basically a cloaking warbird, it could be modified to "Gravity Bombs" instead of "Gravity Drive"?

Anyone here remember Freenet? Apparently the deposed Chinese government and its rebellious insurgents in the People's Republic of China use it for newsletters and the like. http://freenet.sourceforge.net Small excerpt from "The Freenet Project - philosophy" (bold formatting added by me)