I've posted my latest PvP idea on the forums. For those of you who are interested, http://bytelink.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=630
I'd appreciate some responses on the forum :)
Friday, June 22, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Bytelink Trailer Music
A bit premature perhaps, but I've just finished remixing the music for the next trailer.
I know this music has been done to death on youtube, but I really like it.
http://www.bytelink.org/downloads/BytelinkTrailerMusic.ogg
Trailer to follow when we actually have a GUI again!
Speaking of which, due to Easter, I get this Friday and next Monday off work, and Grim has his school holidays. We will be going on a mass-coding session this weekend, so I can teach him how to do GUI scripting, and then let him work on that for his week off.
Expect progress!
I know this music has been done to death on youtube, but I really like it.
http://www.bytelink.org/downloads/BytelinkTrailerMusic.ogg
Trailer to follow when we actually have a GUI again!
Speaking of which, due to Easter, I get this Friday and next Monday off work, and Grim has his school holidays. We will be going on a mass-coding session this weekend, so I can teach him how to do GUI scripting, and then let him work on that for his week off.
Expect progress!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
I've been busy...getting older
It was my 21st birthday on Monday. My friend flew over from Switzerland to come and celebrate with me, and we had a fairly good time, was good to reminisce about our first two years of uni, and look forward to our last one.
So, now I'm 21 and the depression that surrounds that is slowly settling in. I'm classed as an "adult" in virtually every country and culture I can think of. Life gets harder from here on out.
I'm currently hating coding Bytelink. Why? Well, Bytelink was never the prettiest of games, neither was Uplink, however, at least by the end of Alpha 3, we'd got a fairly clean-looking client. Now for the VB2K5 update, I've thrown the entire look out the window and started again. So every time I start up the client I'm greeted by the default windows skin, crappy buttons, and something that looks like a 5yr old did it. I hate this. I need prettiness. But I won't get prettiness until I finish the skin system.
I'm doing all sorts of things to VB that I don't think it was ever designed to do. Twisting it in weird ways to allow our scripting engine to work safely and securely.
Hopefully, GrimReapa will get some holiday from his school soon, and we can do some hard work on the code.
That's all for now folks.
So, now I'm 21 and the depression that surrounds that is slowly settling in. I'm classed as an "adult" in virtually every country and culture I can think of. Life gets harder from here on out.
I'm currently hating coding Bytelink. Why? Well, Bytelink was never the prettiest of games, neither was Uplink, however, at least by the end of Alpha 3, we'd got a fairly clean-looking client. Now for the VB2K5 update, I've thrown the entire look out the window and started again. So every time I start up the client I'm greeted by the default windows skin, crappy buttons, and something that looks like a 5yr old did it. I hate this. I need prettiness. But I won't get prettiness until I finish the skin system.
I'm doing all sorts of things to VB that I don't think it was ever designed to do. Twisting it in weird ways to allow our scripting engine to work safely and securely.
Hopefully, GrimReapa will get some holiday from his school soon, and we can do some hard work on the code.
That's all for now folks.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Missing Website pt2.
For those of you still unable to get to the website/forums, be sure to flush your dns cache and your web browser cache. The new DNS information should have filtered down by now. If you are still getting a domain holding page, and you are knowledgeable, you can force the address to point to 67.18.33.226.
Other than that, barely any news on the Bytelink front. My regular job revolves around programming. After spending a day programming, it's very rare that I get home and want to do any more. Weekends are usually the most work-intensive periods for BL, so the Monday posts should usually be the most action packed.
Today's post comes a mere 9 hours late, due to the fact that I had absolutely no desire to write a post today at lunchtime. Some days I just hate computers, LOL.
Other than that, barely any news on the Bytelink front. My regular job revolves around programming. After spending a day programming, it's very rare that I get home and want to do any more. Weekends are usually the most work-intensive periods for BL, so the Monday posts should usually be the most action packed.
Today's post comes a mere 9 hours late, due to the fact that I had absolutely no desire to write a post today at lunchtime. Some days I just hate computers, LOL.
Monday, March 12, 2007
The case of the missing website
It was late. I'd just returned from work. I clicked my bookmark for the bytelink forums. Nothing happened.
Eventually, firefox gave "could not resolve address" as the error message. My bones shook. I quivered. I considered. I realised.
I'd forgotten to renew the domain.
Bytelink was first registered back in 2003. Renewed in 2005, and then due again earlier this month 2007. The email I originally registered it with is no longer in use. Emails sent to that address reminding me of my blunder went un-delivered.
Thankfully, help was just a phonecall away, and once business hours began on monday I managed to get the domain renewed, and less than 5 hours later, we were back and running.
A bit worrying really, but hopefully something that won't happen again.
Not much else on the Bytelink front at the moment, work is tiring me out, doesn't put me in the best mood for programming once I get home.
Eventually, firefox gave "could not resolve address" as the error message. My bones shook. I quivered. I considered. I realised.
I'd forgotten to renew the domain.
Bytelink was first registered back in 2003. Renewed in 2005, and then due again earlier this month 2007. The email I originally registered it with is no longer in use. Emails sent to that address reminding me of my blunder went un-delivered.
Thankfully, help was just a phonecall away, and once business hours began on monday I managed to get the domain renewed, and less than 5 hours later, we were back and running.
A bit worrying really, but hopefully something that won't happen again.
Not much else on the Bytelink front at the moment, work is tiring me out, doesn't put me in the best mood for programming once I get home.
Friday, March 09, 2007
The Story So Far
Bytelink is now a VB2005 app.
How did that happen? Well, lets explain.
Bytelink must multithread
It's almost as simple as that. Bytelink has so much stuff going on at the same time, the best way of handling everything is to have it all on separate threads. GUI control, networking, music playback, script handling, the lot. VB6's handling of multithreading is poor. Why? People hadn't really considered multithreading back when VB6 was invented, so it wasn't included as part of the language. These days, Microsoft know what they are doing (sort of), and have included robust multithreading support in VB2K5.
I hate VB6
Yes its true, I just don't like VB6 as a language, and I like the editor even less. You have to install a hack so that your scrollwheel will work. Ugh. When you get something wrong in your code, you get a wavy red line and an obscure error message. You have to sort out all your errors yourself. VB2K5 changes all this. It has a tasty, tasty IDE, which actually offers intelligent suggestions as to why your code isn't working. It even helps you solve the problems as you go. You type in
and it automatically changes it to
because the Variant datatype no longer exists in the VB langua
ge. Brilliant.
Anyone can write VB2005
Oh yes, yes they can. Microsoft decided to release a version of the IDE known as the Express edition. There are fewer features, but Express will happily open Professional projects and vice versa. So when the time came to hire a new member of the development team, I didn't have to worry about buying them an expensive piece of software.
We hired another developer
Oh yes, yes we did. GrimReapa (long time forum addict) has been slowly moving up the Bytelink ranks, becoming forum Moderator, followed by Wiki Admin, followed by forum Admin. GrimReapa is now part of the development team, and is slowly learning our style of coding.
Davman started sharing his source
Unbelievable I know, but for those who care to look, there are samples of the Bytelink sourcecode on the forums. These are provided as learning examples for the people who have suffered the same kind of difficulties we have in creating such a customised application in the VB language.
Jesus is taking a break
Unfortunately for Bytelink, our most skilled developer is currently taking a break due to his heavy workload at college. Due to the fact that he is uber-intelligent, Jesus is taking second year classes in his first year. Along with this, he has to keep his girlfriend happy, and basically, his time is short. He's taking an extended leave of absence from the coding side of the project, but his position as co-developer is still open to him, and we look forward to a time when he is happy to return to us.
He will also have to learn VB2K5 (bwahahah).
How did that happen? Well, lets explain.
Bytelink must multithread
It's almost as simple as that. Bytelink has so much stuff going on at the same time, the best way of handling everything is to have it all on separate threads. GUI control, networking, music playback, script handling, the lot. VB6's handling of multithreading is poor. Why? People hadn't really considered multithreading back when VB6 was invented, so it wasn't included as part of the language. These days, Microsoft know what they are doing (sort of), and have included robust multithreading support in VB2K5.
I hate VB6
Yes its true, I just don't like VB6 as a language, and I like the editor even less. You have to install a hack so that your scrollwheel will work. Ugh. When you get something wrong in your code, you get a wavy red line and an obscure error message. You have to sort out all your errors yourself. VB2K5 changes all this. It has a tasty, tasty IDE, which actually offers intelligent suggestions as to why your code isn't working. It even helps you solve the problems as you go. You type in
Dim x As Variant
and it automatically changes it to
Dim x As Object
because the Variant datatype no longer exists in the VB langua
ge. Brilliant.
Anyone can write VB2005
Oh yes, yes they can. Microsoft decided to release a version of the IDE known as the Express edition. There are fewer features, but Express will happily open Professional projects and vice versa. So when the time came to hire a new member of the development team, I didn't have to worry about buying them an expensive piece of software.
We hired another developer
Oh yes, yes we did. GrimReapa (long time forum addict) has been slowly moving up the Bytelink ranks, becoming forum Moderator, followed by Wiki Admin, followed by forum Admin. GrimReapa is now part of the development team, and is slowly learning our style of coding.
Davman started sharing his source
Unbelievable I know, but for those who care to look, there are samples of the Bytelink sourcecode on the forums. These are provided as learning examples for the people who have suffered the same kind of difficulties we have in creating such a customised application in the VB language.
Jesus is taking a break
Unfortunately for Bytelink, our most skilled developer is currently taking a break due to his heavy workload at college. Due to the fact that he is uber-intelligent, Jesus is taking second year classes in his first year. Along with this, he has to keep his girlfriend happy, and basically, his time is short. He's taking an extended leave of absence from the coding side of the project, but his position as co-developer is still open to him, and we look forward to a time when he is happy to return to us.
He will also have to learn VB2K5 (bwahahah).
To blog or not to blog
So, I've always had trouble posting blog entries. I never seem to be able to find the time, or have anything to write about. I've decided I need a bit of a kick up the ass, so I'm setting aside 15 minutes every day (Midday) to post about the day before. This will be difficult, as it will mean if I come up with a funky new feature before Midday, I will have to wait till the next day to tell you all about it. Ah well.
Anyway, enough with this explanation post, I'd better get on with it and update you with the story so far.
Anyway, enough with this explanation post, I'd better get on with it and update you with the story so far.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Ugly things
Well, I couldn't help but notice the awful state of the current bytelink screenshots... I know our client hasn't ever been exactly pretty, but currently... the icons on the left... UGH!
This is a general callout to anyone who reads this blog and is ANY good at icon design. We Need New Icons. Please help. If you can come up with some replacement icons, please post them on the forum and we will implement them ASAP.
Also, a note for j3sus... can you fiddle with the netstat code? The little graph that is always visible, can you make the graph lines appear smaller? Also, I want to see if we can shift the close button over to the left hand side, and shift the MP3 player info to the bottom of the screen, and incorporate it with the email-alert system.
On another note... I will hopefully be able to resume work on bytelink sometime next week. I've been involved with a couple of other ventures, but I'm hoping to wind down my involvement and delegate responsibility.
I've still got work to finish on the PvP demo, regardless of the fact that some people on the forum have already labelled my work as "boring" without even playing the finished version (which isn't in existence yet...). I *want* PvP to be fun, which is why it's taking so long to do. I'm not taking a shortcut to get it finished, i'm pursuing my current design because I believe it will be fun when it's finished. If it isn't fun when it's finished, fine, i'll eat my words, and we can design something different.
Well, that's all my updates for today, maybe I'll have another rant tomorrow... LOL.
This is a general callout to anyone who reads this blog and is ANY good at icon design. We Need New Icons. Please help. If you can come up with some replacement icons, please post them on the forum and we will implement them ASAP.
Also, a note for j3sus... can you fiddle with the netstat code? The little graph that is always visible, can you make the graph lines appear smaller? Also, I want to see if we can shift the close button over to the left hand side, and shift the MP3 player info to the bottom of the screen, and incorporate it with the email-alert system.
On another note... I will hopefully be able to resume work on bytelink sometime next week. I've been involved with a couple of other ventures, but I'm hoping to wind down my involvement and delegate responsibility.
I've still got work to finish on the PvP demo, regardless of the fact that some people on the forum have already labelled my work as "boring" without even playing the finished version (which isn't in existence yet...). I *want* PvP to be fun, which is why it's taking so long to do. I'm not taking a shortcut to get it finished, i'm pursuing my current design because I believe it will be fun when it's finished. If it isn't fun when it's finished, fine, i'll eat my words, and we can design something different.
Well, that's all my updates for today, maybe I'll have another rant tomorrow... LOL.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Long time no blog
For those that only read the blog, I want to make it clear that we haven't dissappeared! If you want to keep up to date with the latest info and news, you should really keep an eye on the forum.
Jesus and myself have been having a little difficulty in getting motivated recently, we are stuck in a rut over PVP. Hopefully I can overcome my lethargy in order to code a cool PVP demo of my idea
Jesus is still working on his idea of PVP, which I believe is based somewhat on Risk, but I'm not entirely sure at this point.
Jesus has also been doing work on the skinnability of the client, so hopefully we will release instructions to the community on ways of creating new skins for the game.
Jesus and myself have been having a little difficulty in getting motivated recently, we are stuck in a rut over PVP. Hopefully I can overcome my lethargy in order to code a cool PVP demo of my idea
Jesus is still working on his idea of PVP, which I believe is based somewhat on Risk, but I'm not entirely sure at this point.
Jesus has also been doing work on the skinnability of the client, so hopefully we will release instructions to the community on ways of creating new skins for the game.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
PVP Server Recoded In C
So, I've been fiddling with the PVP server a bit, and was trying to work out a way for me to run it when I arrive back at Uni (where I now am). The only boxes at home that I'm happy to leave on all the time with little fear of them dying on me are Linux boxes.
Linux doesn't run VB programs very well.
Enter, one crash course in C Network Programming (we havent even touched on this in Uni). I was suprised how difficult it was to find any decent info on even a standard network program.
When I finally got a basic server running that performs the same initial jobs as the VB PVP server, I realised that I needed to be able to make it talk to a MySQL server. More research! All the tutorials I found wouldnt compile, so I ended up frantically emailing the author of one for some more assistance...
Of course, I needed to compile my program with "-I/usr/include/mysql -L/usr/lib/mysql -lmysqlclient -lz" options for the gcc command... Why didnt I think of that? ;)
So, the server is sitting at a semi-completed state, with one major problem... To enable the server to keep recieving connections while dealing with existing connections, the program "forks", e.g, makes a copy of itself, and the copy handles the new connection. The original continues to wait for new connections. So, if I log someone in with the copy, and store some information in a variable, the original copy will never know about the contents of this variable, because it exists only in the copy.
I have no idea how to get around this, so, anyone familiar with C, and the fork() command, along with network programming and arrays, please get in touch!
Linux doesn't run VB programs very well.
Enter, one crash course in C Network Programming (we havent even touched on this in Uni). I was suprised how difficult it was to find any decent info on even a standard network program.
When I finally got a basic server running that performs the same initial jobs as the VB PVP server, I realised that I needed to be able to make it talk to a MySQL server. More research! All the tutorials I found wouldnt compile, so I ended up frantically emailing the author of one for some more assistance...
Of course, I needed to compile my program with "-I/usr/include/mysql -L/usr/lib/mysql -lmysqlclient -lz" options for the gcc command... Why didnt I think of that? ;)
So, the server is sitting at a semi-completed state, with one major problem... To enable the server to keep recieving connections while dealing with existing connections, the program "forks", e.g, makes a copy of itself, and the copy handles the new connection. The original continues to wait for new connections. So, if I log someone in with the copy, and store some information in a variable, the original copy will never know about the contents of this variable, because it exists only in the copy.
I have no idea how to get around this, so, anyone familiar with C, and the fork() command, along with network programming and arrays, please get in touch!
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Alpha 2: Stress Test
So, with the upcoming Alpha 2, I figured it was time to reveal what i've been getting up to in the late hours of the day...
Basically my work has centred around the PVP system, and getting everything in the client cleaned up, functionalised and working efficiently. First on the list was our FirewallCracker program, and here it is:
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/firewall.JPG
Next up? Well, i really wanted to sort out what happened to windows when you minimized them, so I wrote some code that arranges them nicely at the bottom of the screen...
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/taskbar.JPG
After that I wanted to fix up some more of the PVP system, so... remote shell time baby!:
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/remote.JPG
And then to finish off, a cool little intro screen that plays each time you log in, setting up the firewall etc:
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/login.JPG
You might notice that the Network traffic graph isnt always jittering up and down now... that's because I've finally fixed up the code that draws the graph, so functions can increase and decrease the graph as necessary, to accurately (mostly) draw the net traffic for the game.
Cool eh?
Basically my work has centred around the PVP system, and getting everything in the client cleaned up, functionalised and working efficiently. First on the list was our FirewallCracker program, and here it is:
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/firewall.JPG
Next up? Well, i really wanted to sort out what happened to windows when you minimized them, so I wrote some code that arranges them nicely at the bottom of the screen...
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/taskbar.JPG
After that I wanted to fix up some more of the PVP system, so... remote shell time baby!:
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/remote.JPG
And then to finish off, a cool little intro screen that plays each time you log in, setting up the firewall etc:
http://bytelink.org/screenshots/login.JPG
You might notice that the Network traffic graph isnt always jittering up and down now... that's because I've finally fixed up the code that draws the graph, so functions can increase and decrease the graph as necessary, to accurately (mostly) draw the net traffic for the game.
Cool eh?
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Moveable Windows
Now that I've got hold of j3sus, I managed to do some more work. Here it is: Moveable windows
Just some funky code to make all the windows moveable, for desk organisation or something :D
Just some funky code to make all the windows moveable, for desk organisation or something :D
Bytelink Progress
Haven't spoken with j3sus for a while, but I know that he has finished up with the Blip creation code (something I'm using to my advantage for a little video clip of Bytelink if I can find ANYTHING that will record the damn screen properly! Lol).
I'm fairly sure he is working on something else at the moment, and as soon as he gets it done, the code is back over to me for more tweaking and implementation. I really want to get some pvp code on its feet, and while I don't have any solid ideas yet, I reckon a few hours of playing around will get the job done :D
So let's all hope j3sus doesnt spend too much time with his friends this weekend so I can get a copy of the code back in my sweaty little mits!
Edit:
Finally got my screencap software working properly (stupid layered windows). Check out the bytelinkage here! (Mirrored elsewhere to save our limited bandwidth). Check out the top right of the screen at the end of the video. Sorry about the poor quality, I have very limited upload capacity here at Uni. That vid took about 5 minutes to get stored :(
I'm fairly sure he is working on something else at the moment, and as soon as he gets it done, the code is back over to me for more tweaking and implementation. I really want to get some pvp code on its feet, and while I don't have any solid ideas yet, I reckon a few hours of playing around will get the job done :D
So let's all hope j3sus doesnt spend too much time with his friends this weekend so I can get a copy of the code back in my sweaty little mits!
Edit:
Finally got my screencap software working properly (stupid layered windows). Check out the bytelinkage here! (Mirrored elsewhere to save our limited bandwidth). Check out the top right of the screen at the end of the video. Sorry about the poor quality, I have very limited upload capacity here at Uni. That vid took about 5 minutes to get stored :(
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Transparency
I'm absolutely determined that almost every window in the client can have transparency set to it. I want to able to connect to multiple sites at once, and be able to see what is going on at each simulataneously. We'll come up with something :D
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Cool new theme!
One of our happy forumites made us a way cool new skin for bytelink, which i hope to start using as the default! Its a really cool green colour, and has transparency, which i hope jesus can figure out. Afaik you can get transparency by hooking into the user32 api, but im not sure.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Alpha test today
The link to get the bytelink alpha has been given out to 5 more people... Lets hope everything goes okay!
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Bytelink homepage updated
Seeing as the old homepage was crummy, and linked to bits of the site that didn't work, i've done a quick re-working. Check the coolness: http://www.bytelink.org
Cell phone blogging
Well, it took a custom php script (blogger doesnt support uk cell phones yet), but i can finally blog wirelessly! Blogging from anywhere, as long as there is a cell phone signal!
This blog was written in the toilet at work...
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Program choices
Tonight i'll be choosing some of the programs to include inside the game, such as Firewalls, proxy's, etc etc. If you want to post your own ideas, feel free: http://www.bytelink.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1200
Blog begins!
I decided it was time bytelink had a blog that I could update with info as we progress. Saves me typing in the forum all the time. Plus I'm determined to conquer my fear of blogs.
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