Hakaku

Well if you're in contact with Priit, can you get him to fix the directory server? It's been down for nearly two months or so.

Read the DEP part: http://www.ssforum.net/index.php?showtopic=13180&st=0&p=243297entry243297

Well, I think everyone would love to see this game get a major facelift and bring it up to par with the times that we live in. The fact that this game has basically had no update for something like six years now has deeply affected it in nearly all aspects. The problem, however, isn't that we're unable to crack the Continuum encryption, it's more that both the Continuum client and Subgame servers are closed source and remain in the hands of one single developper who has greater priorities in life than helping the community out. The client alone basically controls every aspect of the game and sets the limits for how much we can innovate with the rest (e.g. servers). Bigger maps? More tiles? More features? All client limitations. So why did Priit close source and encrypt everything? To stop hackers. The original SubSpace had been badly ruined by cheating applications like Twister. In order to counter such attempts, Priit basically blocked all access to anything that could hurt the game when in the wrong hands. Why he never passed on the source to someone else is mainly due to distrust and security reasons. And therefore open sourcing is way out of the question. On the good side, MervBot and Subgame have been deprecated by the open source server ASSS, and billers, directory servers, and whatnots already have a number of great counterparts. All that's left in order to move away from our dependance on Priit Kasesalu is the client: basically the only way for this game to move forward is to repeat history and develop a client that will supercede the one that already exists. It's a lot easier said than done though, and the council is basically useless in terms of developping a new one. Bak has been working on Discretion for a few years now, it's the best we currently have. But the majority of people here aren't programmers at all, nor graphic designers, nor anything other than players. So really, the end tale of development usually rests on the shoulders of one person with the will and the know-how, not a group with pseudo powers, not even a community.

game fail http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7137/gamebroke.png

Assuming you registered your user account with a valid e-mail address, you should be able to retrieve it by typing ?lostpassword in-game, an e-mail with a new password should subsequently be sent to you (when, I don't know). Otherwise, read here first, then go here.

2816m is as high as I got, got blown up by a nuke

Well if users have those powers across the entire zone, how are you creating arenas in the first place? You could create a command like ?makearena that automatically creates a new arena, adds the player into the specified group for that arena only (you might want to take a look at how ?setgroup works), which would then grant them powers to mess around with their own arena without affecting anyone else's. If they want it to be collaborative, or simply have numerous aliases, perhaps adding a command that they can use to add other players as members of that arena. This way, you're not uselessly generating files, and the powers remain restricted to a single arena.

Why would a setting be harmful to the zone? Settings are per-arena only. I see no issue with granting a player the ability to play with any of the settings (?quickfix, ?getsettings, esc+c). The worse that can happen is they screw up their own arena, making it unplayable. In this case, I would suggest a command that completely cleans their arena file back to its original format. The only thing that players should be allowed to do is upload new maps and possibly .lvz files, there's no reason for allowing anything else. Changing maps can already be accomplished with the ?putmap command, though you'd need to create your own ?putlvz command. To avoid map clutter, I'd suggest modifying the ?putmap command so that the uploaded map's name remains constant (e.g. have it always use the name of the arena + .lvl), so that it replaces the previously existing file. You might also want to add ?recyclearena, so that players don't have to exit the arena and wait 30 seconds to have the arena changed.

What about being able to specify an image relative to (a) specific player(s), as opposed to only self/team/nme. As in, the server sends the player id and lvz animation specification to current players and entering players, and the client does the displaying. It would save the trouble for the server having to specify the image location relative to a certain player's position on the map and refresh it all the time (giving it a laggy appearance). Edit: I like Jab's idea too, basically being able to change and override graphics on the spot (such as ship appearance, exhaust, flags, etc.), without having to force players into another predefined ship or without forcing the arena to recycle.

For information links, they're not very intuitive. I originally added the info part so that people would be able to find out information about the particular directory server (downtime, problems, zones, etc), I don't think the average player will understand what a bunch of xml code is suppose to help them with.

mine: http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/387/hakdesk.png

That's the standard Japanese Input Method Editor (partly cut off in your screenshot). It will show up as a character aid when a program does not properly handle natural input. If you try to type other complex scripted languages such as Chinese or Korean, you should easily be able to observe a similar program appear. It's not limited to Vista, but applies to all of Windows.

But I love ?go Boki

Yeah, I know my post is partly redundant, but I don't exactly have the same opinion as you. To me, it seems people are afraid to get their feet wet merely because it seemingly gives an unfair advantage to a specific project or that it's premature trying to promote a project that may or may not ever hold out on its promise. I really don't see anything wrong with this 'central authority' (however you care to define that) discussing matters pertaining to a certain project in relation to other ones. If anything, it could be beneficial for the project by sparking more awareness about it. Why constantly play the fear game of effort wasted when effort was never put in at all? The worse that can happen is that the project ceases, giving way to another. Case in point: my own signature promotes pspace, which is a now defunct game client developed by a player named Pyxlz. This signature alone has made people aware of the possibility for an alternative client. While you could say the project ceased to be, the source remains there for the benefit of other users. Failure doesn't surmount to nothing, it helps us learn from our mistakes and spread information and knowledge relevant to it. Realistically, we can agree that no council, comity, group of players, individuals, etc., can decide the fate of the game through discussion about a project. The project will, if successful, prove itself on its own. But I don't believe that opting for stagnation is a better choice. To add, a developper set to surpass a currently backed project, i.e. the monopoly, will simply do it rather than whining 24/7 that the monopoly holds all the cards. If this new project proves itself, then that's what will end up the *now* as Dr Brain so kindly put it. What's wrong with supporting this new project? Why must we step down because invisible projects of the future won't have a fair chance?

To make a new client? No he wasn't. He considered toying with the idea, but that was it. Also, I don't understand why people are talking about a client as if there's rivalry. Rivalry between what? Discretion is honestly the only client that shows progress. There's no reason to keep stating that no client will be able to take over unless it has the same features and better than Continuum, that's more or less an accepted truth already, and no one has ever stated that a client still in early development is necessarily better than the one that exists. However, Continuum wasn't greater than SubSpace when it first popped about either. Yet, it did end up replacing SubSpace on the premise that it was being actively developed and addressed some of the more pressing issues of the time. Likewise, ASSS is basically levelling the playing field by improving on the weaker points of Subgame and bots. In the end, yes the client will be the one to have to prove itself, but zone owners will be the ones ultimately forcing the change regardless of the council or any pseudo 'backing'.

Strike's shield set can be downloaded off ssdownloads. The shield that Samapico linked can be downloaded here without the distortion. Btw jabjabjab, you should consider lestening the distortion in the center of your shield design, it really offsets the entire thing.

SDL_image and SDL_net are separate from SDL itself. You can download those from here. To set up SDL just follow steps 1 to 4 from this guide (for SDL_Image and SDL_net it's the same thing; basically just copy over the necessary header files and library/dll files). You'll also need the zlib library if you don't have that already; the process for setting it up is essentially the same thing (i.e. put the library files in the /lib/, and the header files in the /include/ folder).

You can't actually turn off Windows DEP, you have to add Continuum to the exceptions list.

I think a directly integrated editor would be pretty kickass if you could pull it off Sama. As for LC's comment, that's ultimately a client restriction, though I'm pretty sure Discretion already supports (or plans to support) variable map sizes, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Oh wait, I was wrong, you can't just switch workspace, you need to import the module projects into eclipse, my bad. That is, create any workspace anywhere, then File > Import > General > Existing Projects into Workspace (select something like src/Modules/Animations). On that note, maybe I need to review the tutorials myself since you're right, they aren't compiled as dll files >< Scrap that, the tutorial shows everything is compiled as dlls... As for the asss.bat, I get that too.

Still weird, I followed the tutorial exactly how it was, and had no problems running it. I think the only difference was the name for the 'run configurations' in the menu, though that has nothing to do with compiling. Edit: Maybe if it's of any help, I'll attach my workspace so you can test; perhaps you accidentally made a mistake somewhere? As for the rest, Discretion is a bit confusing, but what I noticed was that pretty much all the subfolders in the source folder are actually Eclipse projects. So you can literally just change your workspace to one of those folders and mess around with that to understand how it works. You can then give it a go at creating a workspace with the module template files, and follow the tutorial. workspace4.rar

Oh woops, I assumed it was a module tutorial >< In that case, for Hello World, you need to make sure it's an empty executable project. Same steps as I said above, just replace shared library with exe. Edit: I didn't really bother with the template folder since I couldn't find it either, but you should be able to test it with any other folder. If there's anything else specific to compiling a Discretion module, it would be to make sure to setup SDL in Eclipse if it isn't already (steps 1-4).

In the menu, click 'Projects', then select properties. In the navigation menu on the left, choose C/C++ Build, then settings. Click on the tab named 'Build Artifact' and choose Shared Library. Make sure the extension says 'dll'.

my boss does lol

Clearly it was the work of aliens.