Snrrrub

I'm flattered that so many of you continue to talk about me. Try emailing me sometime, it's better than idle gossip on a message board, I promise. Arnk and Dr. Brain have been helpful and accommodating in trying to get a 64-bit security.so file that works on my Debain/stable box. There seems to be some pthread library compatibility issue and after a couple of back-and-forths, we couldn't get it resolved. I gave Hakaku and Aquarius the entire zone directory for their respective zones so they can continue to run them wherever and however they wish. Since I'm not hosting anymore, I have no need for any SS-related source. I have reverse-engineered SubSpace/Continuum protocols, cryptosystems, and physics simulations over the years. I have open-sourced them and as a direct result of that work, we've had active development of bot engines and bots over the years. I do this at my prerogative, to learn, to contribute, and to be a better engineer. I value action over talk and continue to build software professionally and personally. This thread has dozens of comments but not one actionable outcome. It's not Priit's fault that "the game is dying". Take action. I sincerely hope everyone here can put aside their ego and learn to respect one another and build great things instead of bragging, calling names, butting heads, politicking, etc. You all play for the same team.

Thanks for catching that, Hakaku. I've fixed the typo but I doubt that'll fix the black screen problem. I'm not sure what's going on but I'm pretty sure it's unrelated to the typo. Which OS/Firefox version are you running?

@Xog: try signing in to Facebook in another tab of the same browser window and then navigating to dotproduct. The server is always running. @Sama: Android and iOS will require native apps. Mobile browsers lag behind desktop browsers in both features and performance. A mobile version would also need to rethink the input system to be touch-based. In short, there's a fair amount of work involved to make dotproduct available on mobile devices.

Changes since last update: - new: bomb recoil - new: afterburners - new: thrust exhaust - better position interpolation especially around wall bounces - better collision detection algorithm - no longer using SVS settings - bug fixes and performance improvements

Another quick update: - fixed double-kill bug - limit length of input field - in-game latency bug fixes and improvements - much lower game loading latency - existing game continues running when server is recycled; new players join the new game

Lots of changes since the last post. - typing indicator (speech bubble) so it's obvious if you're typekilling - @mention a player by clicking on their name in chat - button to make the browser enter fullscreen mode - integrated social buttons to share on FB/G+/Twitter - implemented a scoreboard / roster - bug fixes

If you haven't played in a bit, bring in a few friends and give the latest version a spin. You can find it at the same URL (http://dev.nanavati.net:8000). Recent changes: - play area takes up almost the entire screen - much better chat area (you can scroll, copy/paste, and click on links) - implemented bomb blast radius - tweaked game settings - experimental strafe (a / z keys) - bug fixes and performance improvements

To clarify: My biller extracts *all* of the Continuum security data. I'm talking about all the extra identifying data you can get besides just IP/MID/TZB. It's used for both banning and aliasing (biller-wide). It also does database transactions correctly so your database is never in an inconsistent state (where I've seen other billers fail). The biller can also identify itself as an SSC biller so zones don't get the warning popup (there's a bit more to it than that), *sendto works across zones connected to that biller, AND there's a very small client hack to not send passwords in plaintext to prevent zones from stealing passwords. The client hack doesn't modify the Continuum checksums in any way so zones don't have to upgrade their Continuum.exe - all you have to do is use the new client and connect to a zone on my biller and it all just works. Some of the things freakmonger mentioned are already present in my biller. The real question is: does the community want to leverage an existing project to build and deploy the next-generation biller or do we all want to sit here and talk about what a biller should be for months, get a project or two started from scratch (why reuse when we can reinvent!), and then ditch it all due to lack of leadership and waning interest because it took so long? -Snrrrub

Fixed. Turns out Priit's last biller update changed a few things - like fixing the B2S login response field when the registration form needs to get sent. -Snrrrub

FWIW, I've built a biller and a Continuum hack that eliminate the problem of zones stealing passwords. The biller is ready, the hack is ready, and they have been for over half a year. If there's interest, let me know - my email address is sharvil.nanavati@gmail.com. I'll help out but only if there's serious commitment in making it happen. I'm not interested in investing any more time into projects that fizzle away. -Snrrrub

Thanks, everyone! I hope your long weekend (if you live in a state/province that celebrates President's Day/Family Day) was exciting in the non-SS sort of way. Audry: I took Lynx's comment to mean that there would be a lot of people celebrating at clubs/bars. Either that or all the singles would be trying to get away from the Valentine's Day madness by partying it up. *shrug* -Snrrrub

I've tracked down the problem and it's fixed for the next release. It's a rather strange bug since I haven't been able to reproduce it on any zone except Hockey/Football. -Snrrrub

Yes, the blank lines are ones where people are using accented characters. That issue has been fixed for the next release. I haven't seen messages going to the wrong chat channel before - has anyone else noticed this problem? Froot, does this happen every time you log in/use Starlight? -Snrrrub

Starlight 1.3 introduced a themes feature based on GTK+'s theming engine. Here's some information on how you can install new themes or make your own. Installing a new theme - Download a GTK+ theme - one good place is: http://art.gnome.org/themes/gtk2 - Unzip the .zip file (or use 7-zip to extract .tar.gz files) into C:\Program Files\Sharvil Nanavati\Starlight\data\themes\ - The theme should be available in Starlight by going to Edit->Preferences->Themes Creating a new theme - See http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/Tutorials/GtkThemes for a tutorial on creating GTK+ themes - Look at existing themes in the C:\Program Files\Sharvil Nanavati\Starlight\data\themes\ directory - Create a new GTK+ theme from scratch or modify an existing theme from your themes directory - Change the font colors for your theme by editing C:\Program Files\Sharvil Nanavati\Starlight\data\themes\\colors.txt (see how the pre-installed themes do it) If you've downloaded a really cool theme or you've made your own, take some screenshots and post them here for everyone to see! -Snrrrub

freakmonger: you should be able to run multiple instances of Starlight - I do that most of the time. If you're still having trouble with it, let me know which OS you're running. Audry, freakmonger: I haven't been able to reproduce the crash bug on my end (Vista and Win7). Freakmonger, is your default system language set to English or some other? That may have something to do with it. Again, it would be nice to know which both of you are using. Hakaku, Audry: The next release of Starlight will have a fix to correctly send and receive accented characters. prozaker, rootbear, cre: GTK on Windows is just a miserable experience. I'm looking into redistributing a private copy of GTK with future Starlight releases so you shouldn't have to install anything - just copy the files onto a USB stick and run the executable. Purge: I'm not a fan of hosting applications inside a browser for a number of reasons. As for Java, not everyone has a JRE installed on their machine so it wouldn't exactly be a standalone app. -Snrrrub

Subgame has a "peer" function built in that allows game servers to communicate with each other. If you've ever wondered how they communicate (or you're just randomly curious about it), I've linked to a document from my project site: SubSpace Peer Protocol Enjoy! -Snrrrub

I'm not going to get into any debates about which mobile platform is "better" (for varying definitions of "better") or more "popular" (again, for varying definitions of "popular"). Here are my thoughts on a mobile Starlight: 1) the mobile space is extremely fragmented 2) mobile data plans are still too expensive for most people in most places 3) given our small population, supporting one mobile platform will only help a handful of people 4) GTK+ hasn't been ported to any major mobile platform AFAIK If it were to happen (and I'm not saying it will), I would only consider the iPhone or the G1 given the current landscape. -Snrrrub

Starlight 1.3 is now available for download on my site: Starlight 1.3 2008-12-28 Release 1.3 - changed compiler and installer for easier deployment - added support for themes - arena list uses themed highlight color instead of light blue - removed background color option - this should be set via themes - remote private messages now displayed as :playerName:message (Continuum-style) - messages to chat channel 1 are not sent as;1;message anymore - fixed protocol bug that caused position packets to be ignored - fixed occasional map checksum errors in ASSS zones - worked around GTK's minimize->restore window bug on Windows -Snrrrub

I might actually get around to it this weekend. :-) I hear that the GTK+ port to OS X has made some decent progress over the last month or two so hopefully it will be straightforward to deploy. -Snrrrub

Internet Explorer 8 is still in beta so I suspect the problem is with IE8 and not with the forum. I've noticed that even in compatibility mode, the IE8 betas don't play nice with a lot of sites. If you want a smooth browsing experience, you should wait until IE8 goes gold or use a production-quality browser. -Snrrrub

Hakaku, I can confirm the minimize/maximize bug in the Windows build of Starlight. After some investigation, I found that the bug was in GTK+ for Win32 and the fix will be included in the next public release of GTK+. Here are the Bugzilla reports: My duplicate bug report, August 26, 2008: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=549475 Original bug report, April 20, 2008: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=528975 -Snrrrub

rootbear: Starlight was functioning correctly before, right? Did you install any new applications (in particular, AV programs such as NOD32) recently? I've found that some antivirus applications and GTK+ have some poor interactions with the same outcome as you described. -Snrrrub

rootbear: I agree that Starlight should check for updates and I will add that feature in a future release. -Snrrrub

Hakaku, thanks for your comments. The min/max bug was fixed long ago even though it was never reported. As for the "proper" color scheme - the goals of this project are different than that of the Continuum chat and Subchat2. It is not designed to be an exact replica of Continuum's chat - if it was, there's little reason for it to exist. Rather, one of its goals is to provide a clean and simple interface. I added color customization so that it's more accessible to those with color blindness or other visual impairments. If you're looking for a highly-customizable application with an interface element for every possible action, Starlight isn't for you. I'm !@#$%^&*uming you mean GTK+ since the installer for Windows has nothing to do with gcc. If so then you might be pleased to see that Starlight 1.2 was distributed in two forms: one including the GTK+ redistributable and one without. If libstdc++ is an issue, I can distribute the object files which can be linked against libstdc++ on your machine. Let me know if you're interested. If there are any features you'd like to see, just send me an email (at the bottom of every page on my website!) and I'll look into it. I'm always open to suggestions although I can't promise that I'll implement every suggested feature (even if every other SS chat client does it that way). -Snrrrub

I'm sorry to hear that - could you list some specific areas where you feel Starlight is lacking? I do agree that the deployment model has to change. The tool that I'm currently using (WiX) is severely undo!@#$%^&*ented so I'll either look around online or switch to another compiler and packager entirely. -Snrrrub