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Brian

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    brianp12 at hotmail dot com
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  • Location
    California, U.S.
  • Interests
    Computers, scripting, going to the movies, swimming, hanging out with friends, music, the beach, and most importantly, girls. :P

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  1. Yeah, just popping in to say hello. I haven't been very active for quite a while and I have searched the forum but haven't seen this mentioned yet. What types of compression will be implemented in the game? For example, map compression, network compression, etc. This is an important topic since massive amounts of data need to be transfered for online games. The complexity of a game like 0AD requires large amounts of bandwidth to transmit all the data. This data includes unit types, unit locations, player resources, map events, and it must all be done in synchronization. To minimize out of sync errors and allow more players to play on a single map a good compression scheme has to be utilized to make it happen. I think that 7zip could be used for this problem. It is free and open source and Ykkrosh has mentioned how he likes it on many occasions. I also like it and think that adding a 7zip .dll to be utilized by 0AD could be the solution for this problem. The game engine could use 7zip dll to send compressed data streams regarding current in-game information as mentioned above. Also, most importantly, I feel that maps should be compressed when sent from user to user. This would allow the easy and painless transfer of custom made maps. The game engine would use 7zip to heavily compress the maps before sending them to the client requesting the map. Upon receiving the map, the client would decompress the map on its end and then allow the user to start the game. I can't tell you how many games I have played where maps have been transfered inefficiently by not utilizing compression methods. The time it took to download some of these maps was horrendous at best and at many times I would simply choose not to join a game that was playing on a map that I didn't already have. I know that this may not be a issue that is on the top of your minds right now, but it is an important issue that needs to be addressed and looked at. From what I have heard basic network testing is currently being done with the game and I feel that this needs to be looked at before designing the network portion of the game engine. If not done early a complete re-write of the network portion of the game engine may need to be done based on its original design. Going at it from the beginning is the best way to solve the problem of integrating good compression schemes with the network portion of the game engine. I thought that this was an important issue to bring up. -Brian ;-)
  2. Desmond and I saw it. It is the funniest movie i have ever seen. Go see it now! -Note: This probably isn't a movie you want to bring girlfriends to, or children. It almost has an NC17 rating, but it made the R.
  3. Screw that, i can't get enough of this stuff. I mean, it is simply the best. I need more! More i tell you. I am going to download all the albums from all of those artists. So there. jk
  4. Are you 1337? If so, please explain how 1337 you are and why you think you are that 1337. If you don't know what i am talking about, then you aren't 1337. I had to bring up the 1337 since it hasn't been brought up before.
  5. Yes, you heard me. Phishing has been officially outlawed in California. Phishing in case you didn't know is to, "...solicit, request or induce a consumer to provide personal information by using e-mail, Web sites or the Internet to fraudulently impersonate a legitimate business." So basically the passing of this law means less of those fake PayPal emails that request you to input your account number and password because an "invalid transaction" has occured. Then when you look at the web address, you notice that you are on a site like: "http://157.145.14.1/requestinfo.htm" So you know that the site is fake because it is in no way in any shape or form the PayPay domain. I got a few emails myself and i input bogus information cursing them out and telling them they were worthless and that they would get what's coming. Good times. I just think it is wrong to prey on people just because they aren't computer savy. Here is the full article on it(it is short): http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3553271
  6. Yes, i am glad i got some serious discussion going on here. So you guys now understand where i am coming from when i say scn to rms converter.
  7. Actually, when i said that it could be converted to code, i was thinking in sections. For example, the game engine would read the map and divide in by the tiles on the map. It would then get the objects on each tile and average elevation of the tile. It would then rearrange the tiles as well as objects on the tiles, such as trees, eye candy, etc. Once it re-arranged the objects on the tiles, it would then re-arrange the orders of the tiles themselves, such as placing a tile with trees on it next to the other tile with trees on it to create a large forest. The image above represents a scenario. In it, there are trees(green), gold(yellow), and water(blue). When the game would read the map, it would divide it into the tiles shown and record the objects on each tile. When the game would save the info, it would create a list: 1: 2: 3: //Generated by the scenario to random map script converter 4: 5: [scenariodata] 6: tree.types = "redwood,pinetree2,etc." //lists all trees found on map 7: pinetree2.number = "600" //number of pinetree2 8: redwood.number = "100" 9: water.area = "2154" //total area of water on the map 10: water.touchesSides = "True" 11: water.touch.perimeter = "100" //perimeter of water when it is touching the edges of the map 12: water.touchsides.number = "2" //water touches the left side and right side of the map for two 13: [/scenariodata] 14: 15: [Tile.A1] 16: elevation.average = "30" //average elevation of tile A1 17: [/Tile.A1] 18: 19: 20: [Tile.A2] 21: tree.type="redwood" //type of tree, could be listed like above or like this 22: redwood.number = "5" //number of trees on that tile that were redwood 23: tree.type="pinetree2" 24: pinetree2.number = "20" 25: elevation.average = "15" 26: [/Tile.A2] 27: 28: 29: [Tile.A3] 30: water.area = "10" 31: elevation.average = "5" 32: water.JoinedToAdjacentTile = "True" //this is true since the water goes on to tile 4 33: [/tile.A3] 34: 35: [Tile.A4] 36: water.area = "120" 37: water.JoinedToAdjacentTile = "True" 38: elevation average = "5" 39: [/tile.A4] 40: 41: The code above would then allow the game to place tile A4 next to tile F5 because they are both water tiles with an adjacent water tile. The same could be done to preserve large forests etc. A tile with gold would not initially be placed next to another tile with gold unless the random map script engine decided that it had no other choice, so it would determine the tiles with resource placement last. The town centers would be given a distance around them to prevent other town centers from being placed too close. The distance and other parameters would be loosely followed by the random map generator, but it would attempt to generate a map with parameters as similar to the above as possible. It would be hard, but it would be possible. I may write something like it someday and maybe you guys could then integrate it into the engine. This would give amateurs the ability to create random map scripts which i feel is real important. At least i did back in the day. Do you see what i am saying?
  8. What i would think would be really cool is a Random Map Script generator. You make a scenario and you want to convert it into a basic random map script that keeps the basic triggers(time delays, lighting effects, messages, trigger for a specific generated unit death, etc) and also creates the random map script based on the buildings, trees, specific units, terrains, eye candy, mountains, and water to land ratio. I just think it would be neat to be able to convert advanced scenarios into a script that changes the rules every time you play your scenario. Things just don't get old that fast then.
  9. That is by far the best mugshot i have ever seen Desmond. Here is a pic of me in deep thought. http://img323.imageshack.us/img323/3758/me...lymedium7hv.jpg
  10. I tried to set my computer up as an FTP server but failure only occured. I tried several times but to no avail. I had port 21 forwarded and computers could connect to my FTP server. The only problem is they didn't get a response. So it looks like the computers can send messages to the server but the server can't send messages back to the clients once the connecting computers connect because they seem to time out. I checked i and i know that the FTP servers use port 21 for incoming and 20 for outgoing usually. Maybe my router is being retarded. I tried some passive modes too by setting the IP of my router into the passive field but that also didn't work. I don't know. Maybe i just can't create a server. I am using Cerberus FTP server.
  11. I guess i could do that, but it would be very difficult to do especially with all the firewalls/routers and other security measures people have these days. Windows Messenger file transfer didn't even work for me because i had a router but they fixed that with the newer MSN Messenger. Plus I am new to programming and messing with an internet protocol would be difficult to me. I made this utility to improve the functionality of the MSN Messenger file transfer.
  12. I see your point because i have trillian too, however, the best messenger for the MSN Messenger network is still MSN Messenger. It is newer in design and with the MSN Messenger Plus plugin, it has to be the most powerful messenger program out there. The Plus program can be found at: http://www.msgplus.net/ Detailed info about what the Messenger Plus plugin does can be found here: http://www.msgplus.net/features.php It has cool features added to it like Boss Protection(hit a specified hotkey and messenger disapears ), auto accept feature(automatically accepts files from specified contacts while you are afk), Enhanced Notifications, Custom Sound send feature(allows you to send 10 second audio clips to people on messenger with the click of a button), and POP3-Email association. It is free but comes with an optional sponser program. Just say don't install the sponser program when you install it.
  13. Yup, Desmond and I got in trouble for launching model rockets. I was pretty pissed. @CH Now i know where you live because Uppy says she remembers when you were under the bridge. Therefore you must know her in real life so therefore you must also live in Washington State. I think i just did.
  14. Hmm, 95 degrees F (35 C) outside at 5:30PM according to my atomic clock which has a wireless thermometer that i put outside. My room is a nice 72 degrees F (22.2 C) Yum.
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