a_bertrand

Events are now coded (you will need to add manually a new table if you already installed the engine). Events works as any other "module" and will be loaded automatically as well. Code for a single event like increasing the energy every 30 sec is done with a complete code like the following: <?php $evt=player_event("energy",30); if($evt > 0) set_stat("energy",get_stat("energy")+$evt); ?>   set_stat ensures also that the stat doesn't goes above the limit defined (either fixed, or by a function). The number 30 you fin on the second line is to define how frequently the stat need to be increased. Other things can be triggered by the same mechanism. This ensures a full working game, with background events without any cron.

- It's up to you to change the template to XHTML, I personally don't use it as it can make troubles while using some of the tricks of CSS (quick modes). But as the look & feel is mainly in the template it's really up to the owner to decide what to do. Hopefully some more people will kick in, and start designing some more fancy templates. - I think you didn't read the t() code correctly, it does read (unserialize) the database once per page load and not for each t as the result is stored in a global variable and it's checked if the global variable exists already and is set or not. Could be stored as an array of course, however adding new things to it or edit things is a bit more complex. Also we would have to ensure that the text doesn't exit the "string" definition, and therefore the serialization does all that for me. BTW serialized arrays are easy to edit even with a text editor, if you don't want to use the in game editor.

Hi Kyle, Happy you reached the forums... finally! And good luck with C# :P

Added installer: it checks if the needed directory can be written to, ask for info about the game setup, writes the config file and creates the needed tables. Installing this engine should be really easy now. Next step is the handling of the "turns" or "time" which allows some stats to grow back after a while (like energy)

For the problem of knowing what is what, I tried to keep a readme in each directory to say what the directory does. Of course this need to be futher documented, and that will be done via wiki if we see some more interest. $basedir/work needs to be writable by the apache where the modules directory not, that's why I keept it separated. Also this work directory will contain other files generated by the engine not only the list of "installed" modules. Also the work directory contains a db file which is a serialization of all the modules which use the auto-installation procedure. The work module is just one module which does that. Of course we can change the names, not a big deal.

mdshare propose: [Configure Game options] Startpage elements standard - Game Title (done) - Game Subtitle , meta tag description - Game keywords Doc elements add - add extra elements (metas), eg language, author, etc ... Turn/cron Speed (seconds/minutes) Maximum Turn/cron Limit - if activated setting a limit per player level Start Game Money - New signup start money Max Money Limit - Activate yes/no - if activated Setting a limit of money that can be hold / level , forcing players to spend money in game shops/player shops Protection Period (hour/day) - How many hours/days a new player is protected from attacks by other players Currency name Max Item - inventory limit PM level Limit (day) - activate yes/no and set per level how many PMs/day can be sent by player PM Limit - if PM level limit is not activated, what is the limit a day player can send Holiday mode eg 2,90 - Min holiday (days) - Max Holiday(days) Logoff player after inactive for (minutes) Session/cookie/???

Well it will be finished when nobody will develop for it anymore. Until then you can help the project by downloading the zip, checking how it works, and provide your comments / wishes. This helps even if you don't want or cannot help developing it.

You will find here the progress of this project. Everyone contributing to it should add a little post here too to notify about the change: - The base library is mainly ready (more will be added as we need it of course) - Modules are split in different categories: for admin, interface, locations - You will find some modules in all those categories already - Register / login should work - The work module contains an auto installer and shows how modules could install the required tables by just running the module itself. That's certainly something which may help new people to use modules created by others. - Localization of the engine is possible directly from the admin menu (which means you can as well change texts to fit your theme better, without editing the files). - Template and skins are nearly complete, and will just require a work on it to produce more than one basic template. - Player stats are game dependent and can be set via the database - Modules have full access to the stat without requiring to execute any query Currently the engine package is composed of 72 files, which is not bad for a little simple engine which just started, isn't it? Now I wait at least on your feedback if not your contributions!

Thanks Zero! I hope it will indeed grow and get some usefulness I mean, for the moment it does a few things, but it's certainly NOT a game.

The website: First of all visit the zap engine webtsite here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/zapengine/ It should contain (over the time) more information about the project.

What is the ZAP Engine: The Zap Engine is a collaboration between different members of the MWG Forums. The engine will be at the end a bit more than a simple empty engine as it is meant to be a full working default game. Admin tools should allow to edit most if not all part of the games content like "location contents" (for example jobs), battle monsters, etc... The game will take a full modular design, and will allow new developers to just develop modules without the requirement to change the core files or at least limit those. Feature list: - Modular design - Compatible with php 4 and 5 - Engine under the GNU license - Secure (core and default modules, we cannot guarantee that all modules written by external people are also secure) - Template and skins completely customizable (buttons, colors, placement of the items etc...) - Easy to develop - Doesn't use sessions, instead use a self made cookie (allows load balancing and other) - Will work mainly without crons and certainly without 5min or 1min crons. Goals: - Out of the box secure game - Free to use and develop - Collaboration between multiple game owners to create / maintain it - Go away from those all to well known mafia game engines - Offer more flexibility than the previous mentioned engines Documentation: (still under construction) http://zapengine.com/documentation.php

Sure why not? We could create some "packages" for different story lines / art and even skin / templates.

Updates: - As I didn't got any feedback about the name, I decided (at least temporary) to call it the "Zap engine". - Purchased the domain name zapengine.com - Created a first home page http://www.zapengine.com - The SVN is setup and you can access it as described on the home page - A first version of the framework is already there... with a quick home page, register and login - The login is already secure, the password is never sent over the network - The structure of the game engine starts to take shape and I will now populate some stuff such that we can already see some stats in action... like "energy" and "train" or whatever. Once this is done, I will send you the password to actually submit changes to the repository, as until then, I would say it doesn't make sense that I work and modify all files and you start to modify the same files too.

- It will NOT use any McCode code. It's a brand new script with a different concept as engine. - It will use it own template system. - It will be mainly procedural as most of the time you don't really actually need OO in PHP nor OO is really completely usable (don't want to start any holy war here, but PHP is not at the level of Java or C# of OO) - Due to the design I plan to use you will have a lot less risks about odd urls which give you access or things like what happens all the time to McCode. SQL injection will not be prevented if you use SQL queries directly, however I do plan to create the engine in such a way that you will not need to use SQL queries to change player stats. - Any help is welcome, so welcome to Danny696, ishmell, Immortalthug, Gucci Mane and Agon. I started to create the directory structure and the SVN is ready, so I just need now your confirmation about it and I will send you via PM the passwords (each user will have his own password) and URL to access the repository. For "visitors" we will of course offer zip and tgz files of the engine, but for the development SVN is really a good way to work together.

If you want to get an hand for your project, you should at least specify what your project is.

- Nobody will code for me as Zero-Affect pointed out, as I will NOT be the only owner of this project. If the team agree I would point for a solution where the engine is free and then people can charge for mods. Advantage is that it will help the wide spread of the engine, which means more potential customers for those developing mods. The license however under which the engine will be developed will not be a plain open source license, as I would like to find something which force people modifying the engine (not simply by doing mods) to post back to the engine repository the changes. By keeping the engine free, we ensure also that we will never fight about share of the engine like what if I code 1000 lines you 10000, then why the share should be 50% / 50% ? So Danny, yes you are more than welcome to join us if you want to. - The compatibility or semi compatibility or even a tutorial to explain how to port McCode mods to this new engine would allow to have at the beginning a lot of mods for it, which would also ensure a lot more people interested in the engine. That doesn't mean the code will be like McCode, nor that we will be limited to what McCode offers. Of course this is an optional feature and honestly I'm unsure about how much it is doable. - ishmell: if you and your friends want to join the effort you are welcome, of course you can as well wait a bit to see how things progress here and then join later. The more we are, the more fun we will have I believe. How it will start: - I will setup the repository (SVN) on Monday, everyone will have a read access to it, but to be able to contribute, you will need a username / password. To get one simply PM me with the wished username. - I will start coding some of the features and base infrastructure so that you will all see what I had in mind. However if you have other ideas, once you saw how I thought it, feel free to post your ideas. - We will need a name for the engine... of course, so please propose names, and if possible check if the according domain name is free. If yes I will register it and create the virtual host for it, such that we will have as well the hosting ready to offer all the needed things. - I propose to create also a forum section dedicated to it here - And once we have something, I propose to have the documentation in a wiki (which I'm willing to setup up). So as you see, I can offer as well a lot of the needed infrastructures ;) For those which never worked with SVN (sub version) and runs under windows you will need the following tool: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/ For the linux geek out there, SVN clients can be installed on your linux box via the normal package installation in most distribution.

While discussing with MDShare and others a couple of time, I started to wonder how much interest there would be if I would code a relatively simple game engine which would mimic somehow what McCode offers, for example: - Mainly text game - Login / register / lost password - Some preference - An AJAX chat - Some actions like those works / training in McCode - Some stats - Some combats - Some admin functions (like ban, stats etc...) Text would be fully customizable, as well as the template. The code will be secure as it would be a clean new code and everybody here will be able to provide their input on it. Now what would be also good is to have some sort of semi or full compatibility (should be checked) with the existing McCode mods, either by allowing minimum modifications, or by simply be fully compatible with them. If I invest my time on it, how many of you would want to either participate in this project and / or use it? What I can provide is: - A SVN (sub version) repository for it, with open read, closed to "who need to" commit. - The code to do those basic things as proposed above (some will of course be a reuse of what I'm already using) - My knowledge and some of my time This will of course work only if there is a real interest, and if there is enough people willing to work on it / with me. I'm not willing to just invest time in yet another code, without having any feedback and any sort of collaboration. At the end, we could either go for a completely free engine, or offer a free engine + paying mods or offer a minimal free engine and then the complete engine would be a payed one. That can be discussed with the people here who are willing to invest time on it. However what I will not do is to use some sort of encryption of some files, all files will be anyhow completely visible / not encoded as the reason is the following: those willing to buy you a license would be just annoyed if some parts are not readable, and those which want to pirate your code will do so anyhow. Pirated code anyhow do provide you a free advertisement as Microsoft proved it over the time ;) My reasons behind this: McCode is really not something people should use as it contains way to many security problems. Also all games tends to be the same partially due to the static look, partially due to the texts which are always the same. Also, creating a new engine would help some of you to gain some knowledge, and maybe we would be able to finally switch to something a bit more fun than simply answering questions like "what can I do my website have been hacked".

Sorry but with plain CSS you cannot make gradients. You need still an image as background for that... until they implement gradients in the future version of CSS (which is planned but like you know it may take yet a long time until all browsers support it)

Then show at least what you did.

Title: Nowhere Else and Beyond Published: March 2005 Owner: Alain Bertrand URL: http://www.nowhere-else.org Help:wiki.nowhere-else.org Abstract: Nowhere Else and Beyond is an on-line multi player role playing game accessible from your web browser and which put you in a fantasy land with spells, medieval weapons, monsters and lot of quests (over 500 as today). Start without registering Nowhere Else and Beyond (NEaB) is a unique web game in many ways. The first difference you will see is that it doesn’t require the traditional account creation. You just click “Start new adventure” and after agreeing to the rules, you are directly transported into the game. Now how do you choose your username and password? Simple: talk to the first NPC and answer his questions. After this, you will have a little (optional but important) introduction quest to train you on the different main activities in the game. Unique 2D interactive map NEaB is also unique in the fact that most of the game is played on a unique 2D interactive map. The map (coded in Javascript which means runs basically every where, without the need of any plugin), is extremely fast, and let you interact directly with other players, see them, and chat/trade more directly. But what is NEaB? NEaB is a medieval fantasy game, where most of the quests are written by the players themselves. There are quite a few “official” quests on the main island, but there are lots more (more than 400) quests written by the players. Virtually everybody is allowed to claim a new part of the realm and write his own stories / quests, draw his own maps and even customize his own monsters. Rich virtual world Without counting the quests, NEaB offers a rich virtual world, with tons of activities to do, from fishing to collecting and playing cards online and in real-time with other players. Some activities can be repeated every day, like the mythical “Daily Dungeon” or may be done only once per year like for example the holidays quests. Constantly evolving NEaB also is a constantly evolving game, which has been developed since Jan 2005 and is public since March 2005. Some players still play since the beginning, which means you will certainly find something to do and this for some time. Main features include (but are not limited to): Full multi player RPG On map, locations or standalone chat Private online and offline messages Online / offline PvP fights (in the arena) Player managed markets Multiple non linear quests High quality inventory system Graphical interactive 2D map (like other normal top view RPG) Progressive monster difficulty (as your level up, harder and new monsters appears) Player managed islands (create your quests, NPC, locations and much more) A special pet system which let you talk in with your own words to your pets. Unique collectible cards and unique simple to play card game (PvP). Unique strategic multi-player combat systems In game casino (slot machine, roulette, and card game) Alchemy and cooking potions and other Crafting object Fixed and random map (depending of the location) Medals to reward players Automatic player journal Player managed, fully designed and owned dungeons Player designed objects (stats and description) Thieves and pickpockets actions can be performed Player clans (let share objects for example) 40 Mb of free webspace (no banners) Fully working blog (to be used as you wish) Complete manual

True, but you will however need to use headers for example to set cookies, or change content-type. So knowing what does an echo or using a buffering is something needed in my opinion.

Well it's actually even worse as you don't have a shell, not any other real tools beside those web applications.

a header with a redirection or a script is NOT the same thing. I would personally always use a redirection if possible as it's much faster and works even if people disable JavaScript. To solve your problem you may also enable the buffering in the php.ini and PRESTO your problem would have been fixed as well ;)

Well if you are in the "long run" type of game, you may try mine: http://www.nowhere-else.org Or you may check the reviews on our site here: http://www.playerscorner.org/reviews.php

Indeed, a lot of hacks are known on those paypal auto-payment systems. For example change the price to 1 cent and hope you will get the item anyhow. To avoid it, a safe a quick way of doing it, is to check back all the info on the server like quantity*price should match the total the player payed.