a_bertrand

I smiled when I saw some guys here on MWG saying that he would protect his script before selling them. I have a bad news for him. As PHP is not compiled, and that most people want to be able to dig inside the code, you will not be able to protect anything as any kind of protection can simply be removed from the script. That is, unless you encode your script or use some soft like zend safeguard. Yet if you use those, your script is not anymore modifiable... So basically useless in case of an engine. So how can you protect yourself? Well... there is a couple of things to think about: - If your script is pirated do you really lose money? I would tend to say it is not sure, as maybe the guy using the pirated version would anyhow NOT buy your script. So you don't lose anything. - Actually pirated softs tend to increase the market as more people use it, that means more mods or more people knowing it, which ends up by more people buying your script in the long run. Of course you may think I'm mad but think carefully, would windows be so popular without having be so much pirated before? I doubt. - The time you spend on making a software pirate proof doesn't remove time from development? And as the answer is yes, does it really make sense for your real customers? The answer is no, it hurts real customers without really affecting people which don't want to buy a license. - Happy customers will be generally good customers which will avoid to share their code with others... so that could block pirated version from the fact that your customers are happy and don't want to kill you... maybe I'm a bit over optimistic here ;) Does that mean there is no way to protect yourself? No I didn't said that, and I hope I will come with a creative and yet relatively good compromise for my own engine, but I will not share all my ideas here, you shall see them later on live. But please let me know your own ideas / feeling of the question.

Wickidnezz: I think you simply don't understand something. ANY creative work is basically automatically copyrighted. Now you can argue as much as you want, and try to make yourself smarter, but the simple fact is, McCode owners do own it legally and own the copyrights. Still that doesn't make it an easy task to stop somebody stealing your creative / copyrighted work. Now I will ask as personal favor, stop this kind of discussions as copyrights are clear facts, and can be found on many web sites via google. No need to continue to talk about something which is clearly wrong.

remove the ?> <? on line 9-11 and you should be up and running or move the session_start (found on line 13) on line 2.

If it is just for re-sizable templates, I would tend to try to make it run without any JS at all... and do it with pure HTML / CSS if possible. For the question of the price, I personally have no time currently, but I would say it runs about 100$ for that kind of work.

Octarine: then help us by providing a full list or a better article as even if this is an incomplete article it's certainly already filling some holes.

Well... beside having a captcha which doesn't protect you from anything, I can tell you that I will not give you my real address for trying a game, so nope sorry, will not join. Also... the home page doesn't even explain what the game is about, no screen shot, nothing. Doesn't really appeal.

Thanks Paul ;)

How many tiles will you need? And which quality you are after?

As I'm now leaving till about the 5th Jan 2012, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and an Happy New Year!!!! Cheers!

Development progress quickly and even more so as the base framework is nearly all there. Now I will not be there till about the 5th Jan so don't expect to ear from here till then ;) To give an hint of what will be the first package sold, check this:   Medieval Knight Start: Player start as a squire of a small / poor knight. Goal of the game: Be the best knight yourself. Activities: Train Purchase /sell weapon / armors Battle in tournaments (bows, sword, and ride) Battle for quests Repair weapons and armors Craft weapon and armors Buying and selling manors / castles (limited numbers per world) Invading / defending manors / castles Stats: Dexterity (% to hit depending on the complexity of the weapon and agility of the opponent) Agility (% to evade attack of the opponent) Strength (Hit points) AC (Action points which will determine how many things you can do before running out of time... re-generate slowly) Weapon stats: Damage Reload time Complexity Durability Health Price Damage / Reload time / Complexity shall make a constant   Armor stats: Damage absorption Agility decrease Durability Health Price Damage absorption / agility / durability shall make a constant Game features: Register / lost password / login Game news Tutorial Online market (between players) Real-time chat Simple forum Offline messaging (like emails) Top lists And weekly contests Admin features: Object creation / edition Game news edition User management (stat view, give / remove items, credits) Rules tweaking Language management (change game texts) Table editors (which let edit tables but not all) Progression view (to check if some player cheat) Log view (to check actions made on the game) Game Stats

To develop modules you could start without paying anything, as said, we will give out all the spec and even some sort of environment to test your module. Of course it will not be the full engine. The 20% we keep allow us to offer basically a review, and hosting service. Nothing odd compared to all the app market out there for phones. For the kind of game, the first package will be a text game where the second one planed will be kinda mixed one. Both will use the same engine and modules.

Language contains an XML file which is partially auto-generated partially managed. It has nothing to do with the templates, as the templates normally do not contain texts. You may see it later on in action it may be will be then more clear. Anyhow really the language file is pure text translation and is independent from code and presentation. Therefore it definitively make sense to place it somewhere else. For the config being in the same directory, again this is partially due to the fact the admin / install will need to edit it, anyhow it's inside a directory which is not browsable from the browser (.htaccess), so unless somebody injects some code to read it, you don't risk anything and moving it above will not increase the security at that point. Keep in mind that most PHP code works like that too ;) For the guidelines for the modules, it will come, let me first stabilize the whole framework then I will publish all specs, and quiet certainly give away mini-frameworks to let test it without the need of buying a package.

We could do customer support, but bug fixing other people code wasn't primarily our intention. No the idea was a simplified system, like an app store for phones, where for the customer you have 1 shop and from there you will find all. If there is a bug, that should be the developer work to do, however before reaching the shop we will install the plugin manually on our own setup and check how it's done. This explains the 20% share we take. Again it was an idea, if the price of the module if 5$ then we may need to lower the cost as taking 1$ each 5$ may be a bit too much... we shall see how it goes. Of course free modules will not cost the developer anything ;) For over the complexity, yes, zap engine is over complex, too many directories, too complex. The design of this engine on the other side is really much simpler, if you want dom, I give you a copy of the current design and you evaluate it and tell us what you think. Deal? To give an idea of the directory structure: - Config (config.php being the lonely content) - Install (which will contain the main installer and then shall disappear) - Language (will will contain the language file(s) ) - Libs (shared libraries of the framework) - Modules (contains 1 directory per mododule) - Templates (again 1 directory per template) On the root, 2 files, index.php and a "marker" file. That's it. Here is an example taken directly from common.php found in libs:   /** * Stores menu entries in forms of label, position in the list and link. * It autmatically retreive the module calling it. */ class MenuEntry { public $label; public $position; public $link; /** * Create a new menu entry * * @param $label string * label displayed on the menu * @param $position integer * used to sort menu entries * @param $link string * if null then the module name will be used. */ public function MenuEntry ($label, $position = 0, $link = NULL) { $this->label = $label; $this->position = $position; // Link is not defined then let's extract it from the module name // calling this function. if ($link == NULL) { $bt = debug_backtrace(); $filename = str_replace("\\", "/", $bt[0]["file"]); $path = explode("/", $filename); array_pop($path); $this->link = array_pop($path); } else $this->link = $link; } /** * Sort the menu entries by their position then by their label. * * @param $arrayOfMenuEntries unknown_type */ static function Sort (&$arrayOfMenuEntries) { usort($arrayOfMenuEntries, "MenuEntry::SortMenuCallback"); } private static function SortMenuCallback ($a, $b) { if ($a->position > $b->position) return 1; else if ($a->position < $b->position) return - 1; return strcmp($a->label, $b->label); } }   As you can see, I will try to document the code. And yes this is one of the rare class of the engine. By PHP 5 I mean I may use libraries which will be there with PHP 5 and not 4, like XML libraries for example and make sure the code runs with PHP 5.x. PHP 5 by itself doesn't say you MUST code OO, you can but it is not a requirement. I decided to use some classes, for the DB as well as for other structures like menu, but for most part it will not be OO. Why? Because it would make again the system too complex for new comers, and actually you may not gain much. Here creating a plugin is simply creating a directory, and create a file with the right name inside. Done that the system will use it. No need to extend particular class or attach your module in other ways. For the database I'm evaluating MySQLi, PDO could be an option too, but I think MySQLi will do the trick. Actually I'm thinking of a way to hide the database as much as possible for most cases. For the HTML generation, you will have button functions, and "box" or "window" functions, such that the look will be consistent across the application. The framework may provide also list functions which generate click-able table or whatever. We shall see how the needs come along the road. Of course you are free to do all the HTML yourself as module developer. Actually for a normal "page" module you will use the standard echo function to show something. For the template, it is mainly a PHP page. It will not be a self invented format. Why? Again to let the developer use what they know. Why not smarty? Simply because it would be waste of resources and over complex for the average usage we would have here. I hope I didn't missed any question, if yes please tell me, and I shall try to answer to my best. If other questions come, please ask them too ;)

the development is made with SVN such that we keep track of all changes, but for the modules yes they will be classified as soon as we start to have some to offer.

I started to work on a brand new engine, not zap, not mccode, nothing you ever saw. The engine will not be open source, nor it will be free, yet, I believe it will offer what you guys expect: - Complete open code for the owners. - Secure. - PHP 5. - Commented. - Well structured (without being over split). - Completely modular / plugin based. - Will be delivered as full game or base engine. - Will be able to download / install plugins directly from the admin site. - Template system. For people with little to no knowledge the engine will provide a fully working game and a base where they will be able to plugin lot more functionality without much or any knowledge required. For people willing to develop, the system will allow to develop quickly new pieces without having to change existing code, nor needing to know about complex frameworks. Expected delivery date: March 2012 Price of a complete package: around 100$ Modules can be bought separately too. The development process will work directly with the help of a beta team, which will be able to purchase a full package for the price of 20$ (1/5 of the price) at the end of the beta, or not buy it and simply not keeping the license. I will accept 5 beta testers (at least at this point) so the first 5 which are accepted will be granted to join the team. Of course credits will be given too ;) Beta testers which will be inactive will of course not have the option to gain access of the full package at that given price. Finally, if you want to develop modules for it, we will held a module shop, which will control the security, and the functionality of your module before putting it online (which means for the owners of the engine, using the shop will ensure working and secure modules). We will keep 20% of the sales for us, and 80% will be sent back via paypal to the developers. So it is also an opportunity to all developers to get a market there. Djkanna promised he will contribute to the engine and modules too, I hope to see some of you join the boat as well! I will come later on with a more and more detailed list of features which will be included in the March release.

yes everything double beside POST... as I suspected. Quick solution: hire somebody like Djkanna or others to solve the issue for you, or transform your GET in POST or add a progressive number which could not be asked twice for the same player, like docrime.php?step=1 the first time, then step=2 next one and so on, and check that you don't get something you already answered in which case you don't do anything.

Anything to show Failbro?

Sorry Octarine but I doubt the issue is with PHP errors, but more about how PHP is handled. And this requires a tiny bit more knowledge or tricks to avoid double loading.

And Dabs hold his hand... sure sure....

As said, it seems that only the GET method are duplicated, we gave you multiple ways to solve it, now either hire somebody for fixing it, or start learning PHP.

Sorry, even if you are at the uni you could spend 10 min a day posting / answering emails or whatever. They choose to not do so, it's their problem. I do also have a life you know? With work, and family... So I could also say, sorry, I have kids, no way I can answer to a post.

For me you certainly didn't lost respect, actually I think it's great you did something for McCode, even if it didn't please all (which is actually impossible). What I don't find normal is the lack of reactivity of the 2 main owners... I mean, come on, how many messages did they post about it? What was their contribution on the code or the community lately (last X years)? And did they actually listen to user requests? I'm not sure... For your proposal of the review, honestly I don't know what I could do with it. If the code is good, saying I like it would change something? And if I don't like the code? Also what will I gain from it? Nothing... no sorry better to keep my hand out of it. You may wonder why I did wanted to participate and come with this simple template system, easy, I thought it would be a shame to have an engine without having the possibility to edit the look in an easy way... therefore wanted to help the community with my knowledge... A little gift if you want so.

In the process to create something a bit more complex, I started to model small meccano parts, and I found it fun to compose some image with them. Here is the result: [ATTACH=CONFIG]216[/ATTACH] Feedback welcome ;)

Well I took this image as reference and as you see the number 1 and 0 do not look the same as the others: [ATTACH=CONFIG]214[/ATTACH] For the pushed version, no problem: [ATTACH=CONFIG]215[/ATTACH]

I do not have access to the last version of the code, but from what I hear is that it adds little to no functionality to the previous version, maybe some security patch, and a little bit of admin more... but yet without offering any content for a game to start with, and having a more complex / difficult to navigate (for the developer) code. If those statement are true, again I can't really judge but only get it from the overall feedback, I can agree with the complainers that the Redux version doesn't really bring anything. Also, sadly, the first releases of Redux did contain issues, which means it created even yet an incertitude for the early adopters and shined bad light on the whole thing. This demonstrate the needs of a good beta phase, and instead rushing with a release try to pin out things first.