Code Documentation Update

Posted on Thu Sep 2 21:54:57 2010 by leeor_net

I've just uploaded a fresh copy of the documentation for LoM/NAS2D's code: http://lom.newagesoftware.org/doc/

We've been putting in a lot of effort to make our code as readable and understandable as possible and with the eventual goal of repackaging LoM's core code (aka NAS2D) into a standalone library/API, we've been especially careful to provide documentation that's as clear as possible without overdoing it. If you have the time, please help us to improve the documentation by letting us know where we can improve, where documentation is outdated or incorrect, where there are inconsistencies or for any object/function/parameter/typdef/whatever that is undocumented.

Post a Comment

The Origins of New Age Software

Posted on Sun Aug 15 18:49:30 2010 by leeor_net

I was poking around the Internet yesterday and came across some of the very first projects that I've ever worked on. It was amazing to see what I had been working on when I was aged 12 - 16. These games, while nothing spectacular and unfinished, are the very origins of New Age Software. At the time I called myself 'Neptune Entertainment'.

Anyhow, I dug up two games that I worked on when I was a kid. The first, Beyond Destiny (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlQ_M9IfIHM), was my first attempt at a real game. It didn't amount to a whole lot but I did learn a lot about working with graphics in DOS.

The second, Sir Chomps-A-Lot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzDlZ9Me734), was built by a fellow QBasic programmer who went by the name BattleCraft99. I supplied the tile engine and the original font drawing routines and I did most of the graphics in the game including the player. The game never progressed any further than what's shown in the video but it took a lot of work to get it to that point.

I also came across a Yahoo! Group that I had created in 2000 for 'Neptune Entertainment'. I've since regained control of it and renamed it for New Age Software but I thought I'd leave the original posts and photos on for historical purposes.

Lastly, I found the third website that I'd ever built which was for Beyond Destiny. It's a nearly complete archive on archive.org (http://web.archive.org/web/199910071055 ... ield/7513/). It's not much but it was fun to take a look at anyway.

So that's that. A little bit of history and the efforts that eventually lead to the creation of The Legend of Mazzeroth and New Age Software.

Post a Comment

Slow Going but Still Moving

Posted on Thu Aug 12 20:38:34 2010 by leeor_net

It's been awhile since we've posted any news about our progress on LoM.

Things have slowed down a little bit but that's been the norm for LoM's development cycle thus far. Several weeks of fast progress followed by several weeks of slower progress. Been that way for the last two years...

Anyway, while progress on LoM itself has slowed down a little bit development on the underlying framework (which we call NAS2D internally) and supporting software has not. I've been involved in two other projects that use NAS2D; an as of yet unannounced game internally known as SpaceGame and a multi-player game called Universe Stick.

Working on these other games in addition to LoM does take away some time from LoM but in the end helps to strengthen LoM's code. SpaceGame has already given us what's called a QuadTree which solves several problems for LoM. Universe Stick has given me several solutions to collision detection and I've already developed some of the code that will ultimately become part of LoM's server suite.

All in all a lot of progress has been made in cleaning up the code, improving it in many areas and making it easier to work with. It doesn't show too much on the outside but under the hood things have developed a lot.

Moving along, I'm working on finishing up a few more loose ends in LoM's mapping code so that I can make another release. This release will make it possible to add links to other maps so that a player can move from one map to another. It gives us the opportunity to start making some of the actual maps that we'll see in the game.

Wall structures aren't yet available but will be the focus of the next release as well as collision and possibly the chat systems.

Post a Comment

Update API Progress

Posted on Mon Jul 12 09:39:36 2010 by allenmoatallen

Leeor and I have made excellent design progress on the new Update API. It is shaping up to be a much more reliant system and allow for greater flexibility. I am predicting it should be functional in its basic form within the next two weeks.

In other news, the Filesystem has been reworked and improved. Both flexibility and stability have been vastly improved under this iteration and final cleanup is going into making sure the rest of the code base reflects the changes to this system.

Thank you for all of your patience!

Post a Comment

Project Updates

Posted on Tue Jul 6 16:32:15 2010 by allenmoatallen

Things on the forums have been slowing down but progress on LoM and all of its supporting software has continued on as normal. We've re-focused some of our efforts on developing the new update system that's been mentioned a few times.

The system is being designed as a standalone API which can be linked into any program. The basic idea behind the update system is to build a native GUI application that is then run by the user. It automatically downloads any available updates and applies the updates to the game.

With the original release of LoM we included a rudimentary update system which was generally ineffective. It was thrown together on a whim and ultimately turned out to be very ineffective especially on Windows systems with file permission issues. The programs that did the updating were highly unstable and the system itself was limited in its abilities to perform complete updates.

To that end, we've designed the new system to be much more effective, much more reliable, much more flexible and much better at handling file permission errors.

Post a Comment

Behind the Scenes of LoM's Development

Posted on Sat Jun 12 00:09:17 2010 by leeor_net

It's been awhile since I posted anything but I can assure everybody that progress on LoM is definitely continuing. As some of you already know, I've been developing a side-project I call SpaceGame as a way to test and stress test LoM's core code in different applications and as a way to experiment with different features that will ultimately make LoM a better game.

This is the third video in the SpaceGame series and the most interesting to date. I've got the movement and scrolling down pat exactly the way I'd hoped. This video demonstrates that.

As for how it applies to LoM to improve it, thinking about the challenge of managing potentially hundreds of objects that need to be drawn and tested against for collision I decided upon what's called a QuadTree structure. Long story short, it makes it very easy to very quickly check to see what objects are visible and what objects are near other objects without having to check each object in a list. QuadTree's are a concept I've been familiar with for a long time but had never considered applying them to LoM's object lists until I gave it some thought with SpaceGame. It was one of those "Eureka!" moments... but I digress.

Anyway, enjoy this video. SpaceGame could be a very fun addition to New Age Software's list of projects!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ZJ4cbQdp4

Post a Comment

Website Updates

Posted on Fri May 28 07:23:18 2010 by leeor_net

I've made a few updates to the website, most notably the Downloads Page. I've included a Windows non-installer package which may be more desirable for advanced users (like me) and I've also included the current tools package for Windows.

I've also updated the FAQ page a bit.

Some changes will be made to the Game Info page(s) in the very near future so keep an eye out for those.

Also, if you haven't already, go check out our Wiki page! There's a huge amount of information there both for users and developers and has a lot of interesting stuff. Let us know if there are any articles/pages that need updating or any suggestions that could be made to improve the Wiki site.

Post a Comment

Chinese IP Blocks

Posted on Wed May 26 12:37:34 2010 by leeor_net

I've recently updated our web server to block traffic from several networks known to allow or host hacking and spamming. I've now updated the block to encompass the entirety of China due to a recent uptrend in hacking attempts against US based networks.

I've also added Korea to the block list as they have now hit #1 in the world for hacking attempts.

I hate having to block entire countries so if you're from one of the blocked countries or are on a network that's blocked, please don't take it personally. Demand that your government and service providers start cracking down on the malicious users of the Internet. Until the attacks subside and these countries and networks start to abide by proper netiquette guidelines and internationally accepted good practices, they will remain blocked to prevent abuse of our website and ultimately abuse of LoM once it goes live.

Sorry.

Post a Comment

New Issue Tracking and Management System

Posted on Tue May 11 04:40:26 2010 by leeor_net

I know I said the last time I posted about this that we wouldn't be making any more changes to the bug tracking software... I lied. We did make another change and this time it really is the last change we're making!

I'd like to introduce our new Issue Tracking software! We've set up permissions in such a way that users don't need to register to submit bug reports or support tickets. Hopefully this won't be abused so that we're forced to require registration.

We've had Redmine up and running for a few weeks to test it out and see how everything was working and to fix any issues that might have showed up. Now that testing is done and out of the way we're publicly announcing it so that any users of LoM can look at bug reports, submit bug and support tickets and check out recent activity on the part of the developers. Check it out when you have a chance!

http://redmine.newagesoftware.org

Post a Comment

New Editor Improvements

Posted on Fri Apr 30 09:30:29 2010 by allenmoatallen

Several enhancements have been made to the editor and several more are in the pipeline. This is by far not a complete list but includes the most immediate planned features or corrections.

EDITOR - Sees improvements just about every week as we get new game systems functional.

NEW:

PLANNED:

If you have any questions or issues with the editor currently please feel free to get in contact with any of the developers or post in the appropriate sections in our forum.

UPDATER - A brand new updater is being designed as we speak which will allow for several things I talk about in more detail below.

PLANNED:

Originally we were going to create platform specific update systems for Mac and Windows but in the last few weeks decided to ditch that effort in favor of a cross-platform approach. The main advantages are: better familiarity with C++ as opposed to Obj-C; 1 code base that is functional across major platforms; Can be applied to future projects by our team.

Post a Comment

New Video Posted

Posted on Sun Apr 25 04:50:51 2010 by leeor_net

Trevor and I have been hard at work the last couple of days. There's been a new Windows installer release, a lot of improvement and forward motion in the Client and Trevor's been working to get the Mac updater working properly.

I've been doing a lot of work on getting prop insertion and manipulation working in the mapping system and the Map Editor. I haven't pushed the update out yet but here's a YouTube video demonstrating some of the new changes to look forward to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuKnM2YPQ9E

Enjoy!

Post a Comment

Infinite Launch/Update Loop

Posted on Fri Apr 23 17:17:59 2010 by leeor_net

I've gotten a few reports about seemingly infinite updater loops, particularly running the Windows version of the game when using the shortcut created after the installation. This is a file permissions issue and is not something that users should have to be worried about.

I've put together a new Windows installer package. It's now up and live on SourceForge but users can download it from the Downloads Page of our website.

If you have already installed LoM, you will need to uninstall it before running this new installer.

Post a Comment

New Client Updates Rolled Out

Posted on Fri Apr 23 03:23:28 2010 by leeor_net

We've rolled out a few new updates that are now live and being pushed out to all Win32 installations. MacOS X should see a new release soon.

Most notable of the changes are the changes to the UI in the map editor with larger more easily recognizable buttons. We're still working on tooltips so expect those within the next few weeks.

The map system is now stable and won't crash when very small map sizes are requested. This was an issue that's been reported a few times that I casually chalked up to "Feature not yet finished." Well, it's finished and you won't be seeing crashes due to small map sizes anymore.

Background audio in maps will now play properly. We didn't ship any music files with the release but you can add your own audio files to the game and have them play in your maps. They can also be previewed in the Editor. I'll be linking a few visual tutorials for that shortly.

Also part of this update is a fix to the Mixer which will now properly set volumes defined in the 'config.xml' file.

We'd also like to remind everybody that The Legend of Mazzeroth also has a FaceBook Group and we encourage everybody to join!

Thanks for your continued interest and support!

Post a Comment

Preliminary Map Prop Support

Posted on Sat Apr 17 17:39:11 2010 by leeor_net

New video up on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqvtoIKGL8M

I took some time to merge some of the changes made to the core code in Space Game into LoM's code. It feels good to know that the OpenGL renderer is a little cleaner now and that a major memory leak was cleaned up.

Internally there a number of changes made to some of the low-level utilities. Other minor cleanups were done here and there.

The biggest change here is the addition of map objects. In particular, I worked on Props as they're the easy part...

In the video I added boxes around the objects themselves -- I left that in from my debugging session checking out both rectangle intersection checking code I added and to test some of the new interfaces I added to both the Sprite and base Entity classes.

The next phase of this development will optimize object checking code (by assigning them to tiles instead of just inspecting the entire list) and then adding object insertion via the built-in map editor.

All in all, a productive day!

Post a Comment

Client Testing

Posted on Mon Apr 12 13:43:34 2010 by leeor_net

Well, we've now release both the Win32 and the MacOS X clients. Both have a launcher/updater and installation process, both appear to be working on the machines they've been tested on.

However, we now need you, the users, to give us feedback on your experience. The Client, as it is, isn't much but what's there works. We've already been able to fix a few bugs since the release and we'd like to hear more about your experiences.

If you do experience any issues, check our Help and Support forums:

As of this time there are no BSD builds. We're working on setting up a BSD build environment to build, test and deploy BSD builds.