Progress on DS coming back online.

[»LtNirvana]

UPDATE: DS is online at SSCL Desert Storm in a beta state while I continue to do more work. The zone is fully functional and playable and on SSC. Enjoy.

 

UPDATE: Okay so the directory server issue is apparently not resolved. If you can't find the zone in the directory list just use the IP 69.164.209.244 and port 13000 to add the zone manually to your list while we try to sort out this nightmare.

 

Yeah, I'm bringing DS back online. I'll keep you hippies updated on my progress on here. Hopefully it won't take me more than another week or 2 but who knows. I'm lazy.

 

My plan so far has been to bring DS back up and running as a subgame zone in a similar but improved form that it took at it's peak in 2003-2004. This means first of all and most importantly Turfspawn-Powerball type gameplay (where you spawn forward on the battlefield based on what turf bases your team controls, giving you a scoring advantage being closer to the nme goal.) Screw CTF, it never worked in DS really and the settings are really more suited for open environment dogfighting and powerball. The second part of the plan has been to optimize the gameplay taking the population of ss into consideration, improve graphics and sfx wherever possible, optimize a classic map for improved play, optimize a settings a bit to try and balance things, and potentially rework the scoring/buying system so that winning games actually matters.

 

What have I done so far?

 

-Well most importantly, after finding it impossible to secure a server that would host subgame for me, I bought a VPS yesterday and am in the process of configuring it. I'll just host the damn game myself instead of getting more people involved who could possibly destroy the zone for no reason again. I'm in the process of securing an SSC slot (how long this will take is up to the council and ultimately priitk I guess). I've never hosted a zone before, so I'm hoping I don't run into many issues with this.

 

-In 2009 I led yet another dev project to do essentially what I'm doing now, rejuvenate DS. It included a major upgrade of anything visual or audio in the zone and some other stuff that I've already mentioned. Luckily I found (most) of the files from that project and others that I'm fairly certain were never really used in the zone when it was live. This includes a new shipset (better looking, but more importantly better for AIMING, all guns center fire and the soldiers look much better) which I think was loaded by Cre before we finished it but I can't remember, all I remember is there were problems. I personally think this shipset is a huge improvement so I touched it up and recompiled the lvz.. should be a good change.

 

-As mentioned previously I took my favorite powerball DS map and edited it to include some elements from other favorite maps of the past, retiled it with a new tileset and fixed some things to make it optimal for the powerball style game, and also made it 6 turf bases instead of the 8 we used in the past. I thought about using 4, but I think 6 will be fine considering their position.

 

-Another part of that 2009 project was making the background not look like garbage and compliment our tileset better. Again not sure if it was ever used in the zone, but part of this new project will include a simpler, more aesthetically pleasing background image. To compliment the background, it will be paired with an overlay LVZ that adds craters, bodies, gore, scorch marks, crashed ships, and other nonsense to make it less dull.

 

-I'm terrible with photoshop so I spent an assload of time transforming the turf possession board from 4 spawns to 6, and redoing lost graphics for the board LVZ. I couldn't change it in the way I had envisioned due to my own ineptitude and since my old graphics guy wanted 68 bucks an hour to do work for me. (this board is the thing on your screen that lights up which turf bases you control by number left (1) to right (6).

 

-Spent a lot of time finding SFX to replace all the spacey bullshit that defaults in SS and also update some crappy ones.

 

What do I plan (or hope) to do?

 

A shitload.

 

-I have a lot of graphics shit I'd like to do but at this point it's probably going to become either optional or post-launch since I don't know what I'm going to be capable of changing due to my limited graphics ability. (special/weapon disps, bomb/bullet gfx, rep gfx, mines)

 

-I plan on replacing a shitload of SFX in game.

 

-minor settings changes

 

 

 

 

I could really use help with the graphics work. If anyone wants to help me out with that god bless you, it's really not that much anymore since almost everything is done. If anyone wants to help out with anything else, of if you have any brilliant ideas for the project, I'm all ears!

Edited December 22, 2011 by LtNirvana

[spidernl]

I'm going to stick to suggesting gameplay 'upgrades' as well as these graphics changes. I'd like to see DS do well for a while, y'know.

Anyways, nice to see you at least trying to get the zone back online.

 

I'm not sure why you didn't just go with an SSC slot on an ASSS-hosting server, but yeah, your choice.

[Cheese]

dont bother posting here, he has deleted every post prior to yours

[PlayWolf]

Can't not wait to see how it's going. I hope we can get enough for some game play at least.

[PoLiX]

dont bother posting here, he has deleted every post prior to yours

 

Wow, a single post.

[Cheese]

dont bother posting here, he has deleted every post prior to yours

 

Wow, a single post.

 

look, another single post

[»LtNirvana]

Grow up Cheese.

[Michio Kaku]

Sounds great. I'm not skilled in art, sounds or coding unfortunately so I can't really help you there. However once you get the server back up, I'll be happy to sit in the game attracting population.

[»LtNirvana]

Did a shitload of settings changes and I have to say I'm pretty happy with them. I think I've balanced the ships in a pretty good way. A few more tweaks to do but I like what I see so far.

 

Still have to do all that sound work and a bit of graphics stuff but thats not critical.

 

We were approved for SSC and are now just waiting on Priitk to open up the firewall for us. Once this happens I will put the zone on the directory servers in a playable open beta while I continue to work on superfluous things like sounds and graphics that dont really effect gameplay.

 

If anyone wants to come in and test settings and give feedback let me know.

[»LtNirvana]

More settings work and a bit of testing. Settings definitely need wide scale testing but it's hard to find people to help test. Ship 5 (flamer) still probably needs a lot of work since the bomb settings are a headache.

 

Switching to LYNX's server (SSCL) due to lag issues on my VPS. SSC slot has been secured. Will get it tomorrow.

 

Still have all that graphics and sfx work to do but whatever, thats extra that I can do in open beta.

 

At this rate I'll have the zone open hopefully by Monday-Wednesday at some point.

[spidernl]

Are you using ASSS or not? It's a little unclear for me.

 

If you are, then I could possibly help out with some of the coding work, if you want.

I haven't done much playing around with the bots there are, so I'd rather not code for those.

[»LtNirvana]

I have 2 months to make the conversion to ASSS, so yes. I will need help to make the conversion, so we can talk more about what you can do when I get started on it. Trying to fix a glitch where the directory servers don't see the zone right now even though it's up.

[Dr Brain]

Make sure you load the directory module. I think it's commented out of modules.conf by default.

[»LtNirvana]

SSCL Desert Storm is up in a beta state. Game is playable except the turfspawn plugin (how you set your spawn point up the battlefield) is not functioning, I think it's having problems running WINE because of the visual C++ runtime it needs. Working on that.

[»LtNirvana]

UPDATE: We appear to be having a problem with the directory servers as the zone is not showing properly on the zone list when you download. Probably a WINE related issue. To get in (SSC is working fine) just click add zone and put SSCL Desert Storm as the zone name, 69.164.209.244 as the IP, and 13000 as the port.

[»Lynx]

I recompiled the turfspawn module as a multi-threaded dll so it links the libraries statically. The directory bug has been fixed too. Enjoy

[CommanderHB2]

I can acquire good sounds and compress them accordingly, if you're interested.

 

Anyways, it's nice to see Desert Storm coming back. I used to enjoy playing there (aside from some problems with mod abuse back in 2007, that made me jump ship for a while). I wish ya' luck.

[Cheese]

is it on the directories yet Edited December 14, 2011 by Cheese

[»LtNirvana]

I can acquire good sounds and compress them accordingly, if you're interested.

 

Anyways, it's nice to see Desert Storm coming back. I used to enjoy playing there (aside from some problems with mod abuse back in 2007, that made me jump ship for a while). I wish ya' luck.

 

I have a whole army of sound effects I'd like to use that need to be edited and compressed. I can do it myself but I have a ton on my plate already so any help would be greatly appreciated. I do have a list of things that I want to replace with sound effects that I do not have that would be cool if you could fine them. Contact me in game.

 

Cheese: Lynx says it's on the directory and players are finding the zone so it should be.

[Dav]

seems to be down from directory servers again, Just had to add manually for my netbook

[»LtNirvana]

UPDATE: Okay so the directory server issue is apparently not resolved. If you can't find the zone in the directory list just use the IP 69.164.209.244 and port 13000 to add the zone manually to your list while we try to sort out this nightmare.

[Acer]

Good, DS should of never went offline. Should of only got some people who wanted to develop it in till people got enough free time. Can't wait to see it fully up and running and having a decent population.

[»LtNirvana]

I changed the port of the zone to 13778 to try to resolve this directory server issue. Info on manually adding the zone updated on the original post.

 

Can anyone lend any advice on this? It's been like 2 weeks and I've tried everything. I've changed the name of the zone, the port, and the password in the directory section of server.ini and nothing will take. Absolutely nobody (including myself) can see the zone on the zone list when downloaded, despite all the directory servers being listed in the .ini.

 

The original problem seemed to stem from SSCL Desert Storm already existing on L Y N X's server by way of Cheese, so we thought it was a reclamation issue, but now I've change virtually every piece of info for the zone except the IP. WTF?

 

Lynx also checked his firewall, bear in mind that several zones are hosted on this server with no such issues.

 

LT

[Cheese]

ive already told you the reason twice, both you and lynx have ignored me, and even went as far as dipping hands in my cfg to change my zones port so you could take it, with me even stating that it wouldnt work beforehand

[Cheese]

post removed Edited December 21, 2011 by Cheese