Wednesday, November 29, 2006

1.14 Delay and Win/Loss stats

Hello all, back from my long absence for the holiday (Thanksgiving for those outside the US) and now we have a lot of work to do and a new sleek version of GTADS to deliver, in due time. Still setting up the server explorer and looking for a setup to get most of the stuff off of rez.fastping.net and migrated to gtads.sourceforge.net. Comboy has been helping with a lot of the server accounts code making sure that the transition is as easy as possible to the new MD5 based system. I would like to thank rider from age4greeks.gr for volunteering to help out with the greek translations for the updated manual, readme, and in application text.

Another big thing we have been working on delivering soon, game stats. We have all been pouring over countless Direct IP games of Age of Empires and GTA1 to find out what determines win/loss and I believe we may have found it. With further testing, we may have a experimental framework for stats and make GTADS competitive.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Support issues for GTADS

I have been seeing a few problems with people connecting to GTADS, creating accounts, needing help getting a game going. I decided that the best way to address the issue would be to create a new mailing list for all users to post comments and issues with GTADS when no one is on the rez.fastping.net server. The email address is gtads-support@lists.sourceforge.net and it should be operational within the next 12 hours. If anyone has a problem using GTADS send an email to the specified address and you will receive a response quickly. My aim address koolaidballon is also available for anyone to ask me questions if and when I am available.

Update: Sign up to gtads-support here

Monday, November 13, 2006

Beta Release 1.14 update

Well it looks like we have hit a lot of stuff for this release, which is making 1.14 a much more significant release that I have previously thought. Besides multiple players on the proxy, we are currently integrating a server browser, and an auto update system to make upgrades of small things, such as locale implementations, or more things, such bug fixes, or whole version upgrades.

There is still a lot of work to do and all we can ask for is patience and the occasional donations :-).

Thursday, November 09, 2006

DirectX and WineHq

I am very interested to know, since I do not possess a *nix machine with X on it, if anyone has any directX games working with Wine. If you do please contact me and let me know if you are willing to help test if GTADS can work for these games. It would be nice to set up uniform gameplay throughout various operating systems.

As for the much anticipated 1.14...

We are all working very hard on delivering a release in a timely fashion with so many necessary* features we want to throw in but make sure is correct. The most important is making the upgrade for clients and servers alike a smooth transition.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Keep on top of GTADS Development/Progress/News

There are two mailing lists that anyone can subscribe to if they want to be involved or informed about GTADS News that may not make it to this site.

GTADS-Misc: Mailing List for all miscellaneous items related to GTADS such as bugs, feature requests, questions, and comments, as well as general news. It is recommended that you use this mailing list to send these things rather than emailing any of the developers directly as therer will be a better chance your question will be addressed quickly or at all.

GTADS-Devel: Developer's Mailing List. If you are interested in the development aspect of GTADS or anything that has to do with its release, this is the list. While most user end bugs should be send to the Misc list, any bugs that have to do with the actual code (i.e. "I am concerned with the code in DSChatServer on line 195") you are welcomed to throw it up on the list. All developers will be on this list but it is open to all.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

GTADS getting audio

Yes, it looks like this will be a reality for 1.14. One of the big problems with coming on a GTADS server and waiting for players was that if the window was minimized or in the background, 20 potential opponents would come on and leave with you realizing this 6 hours later. The work is in the early stages but should be done and in the preview releases by sometime tomorrow.

Friday, November 03, 2006

New GTADS Developers

I am happy to announce that addition of 2 new developers to the GTADS team. I will introduce them by name as soon as I get their okay to but I will tell you a little bit about the help I will be getting. One developer from Greece has experience with php and mySQL and will be helping with the proxy code and mySQL side of things. The second developer comes from San Francisco and has experience with mySQL, vb.net, and a bit of java, and will start helping me with the mySQL transition for the 1.14 release as well as doing a well needed GUI face lift. Expect faster faster and more feature filled releases in the coming releases as these two get acquainted with the code base.