What is going on behind the scenes

[marc369]

I have not been as active of late and certainly have not had time to check out the forums so I thought I would ask the question of how are things progressing with the site.

I have not seen any updates for a while so how is the coding going? Any progress with real time games I tried playing two games simultaniously and experianced the same issues.

It might just be me but there don't seem to be the same amount of activity the last month or so.

 

[empirejeff]

Their are still some bugs, but it is better than it was.

 

[marc369]

No doubt it is, I have not seen a zero troop bug for a long time but I was thinking more of an update on where the site is heading?

What projects are moving forward? Are we any closer to having a notifier bell? Or being able to say blitz with a set ammount of troops?

 

[Cardinalsrule]

The recode is moving along, don't know exactly how far along it is, but it's getting done. As far as any individual features, I don't know. Maybe Sheriff could answer that.

 

[marc369]

Any word Sheriff?

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

Hi Yeah. I can give you an update. Just bear with me for a bit though, I'm got my hands full with other stuff. But good question, Thanks!

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

Hi!

Sorry for the slow delay. My dad died last week so I haven't had time to respond in the forums as much lately.

Anyway, here's a brief update.

1) In September we moved to a new server which greatly improved performance and prevented the game from "freezing" and we stopped having those damn "processing, processing" errors. Performance improved and more people are staying on the site longer and playing more games.

2) We also manged to clean up most the bugs people experienced, but not all of them because some are a result of old code. The "zero troop" bug is actually part of the old code, but all the improvements have greatly reduced it from appearing to almost never at all.

3) In October we decided that Marcos should move away from daily bug fixing and starting focusing on the recode instead. The site is working as well as it can under the current code, and his time would be better spent on the new site.

4) At the end of December we hired a new guy (Ibnu) to help Marcos with the Fronted. Meaning he was integrating the new code Marcos wrote with current UI we have now.

https://www.majorcommand.com/user/ibnutri/

So far they have finished the Create a Game page, Loading the Map page, Highlighting the Regions and their neighbors with the mouse hover, Starting a turn, and Deploying the Troops phases. Currently they are implementing the attack phase and next they will integrate the reinforcement and end turn phase. A very barebones working model should be ready after they get that done.

This video is a month or two old, so it is not recent, but it shows how smoothly (and quickly) the Map Screen loads after a New Game is created. Notice that the stars fill up almost instantly and the there is no time to read those amusing loading comments.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14750075/out.ogv

5) While Marcos and Ibnu work on the new game, we just started today to look for another new coder to help with some of the routine maintenance tasks and add some fun tweaks that aren't really important enough to take Marcos's time away the recode, but are important enough to do because they will improve the overall game experience. Things like implementing new Medals, fixing some broken links, upgrade the forum software, notify the user when a turn starts, etc...

So that about sums it up. All of us, Me, Marcos, and Ibnu, have all had things happen at home that caused a delay here and there, but aside from that, things are moving along. I'm really looking for to getting more help, because the more people working, the more progress. At least I hope!

So have fun and let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Sheriff.

 

[Pariah]

That is awesome! This is by far the best risk site out there for real time games and i'm glad to see that new things are in the work. I think it would be a good idea to give new players a "welcome message screen" after they register which tells them not to use Chrome and if their game should not be showing troops to refresh the screen. I don't know how much work that would involve but I can't imagine it would be too difficult. I notice a lot of new players on there first battles always go AFK and I know, just know, it's because of that bug. And no one tells them about it in the chat because we all want them to go AFK as that is one less opponent to worry about but in the long run it is not good because those are players who will likely leave the site and may have been potential regulars.

 

[Pariah]

What I mean is agree it is perfectly fine as is and if you are putting all attention towards new site, version, or whatever then that's actually pretty awesome. But you should just make a welcome message that all new registered players are redirected to immedietly after creating a new account which explains to them the bugs and how to work around them that way you will grow in the mean time.

 

[Bluebonnet]

Thanks for the update

 

[Sebrim]

when did the new 'team turn'-buttons appear? they look great

Only: the text is across two lines and therefore is on top of the time display. Any thoughts about improving that?

 

[Malpot]

That is nice how it now shows when your team mate has a turn... It also fixed the turns page being broken for the last couple of weeks, so YEA for that too!

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

when did the new 'team turn'-buttons appear? they look great

Only: the text is across two lines and therefore is on top of the time display. Any thoughts about improving that?

Today!

Ah thanks. Looks like the word "turn" is not on the button.

Can you let me know what browser and OS you are using?

Thanks.

 

[BeanZ]

I love it Mr. Sheriff

It's so helpful!!!

Using Chrome on Windows 10,
it's the same on IE and Edge as well.

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

I love it Mr. Sheriff

It's so helpful!!!

Using Chrome on Windows 10,
it's the same on IE and Edge as well.

Thanks! It seems to be a Windows 10 issue. :0

Now you have something else to add to the wiki once we get access back.

 

[BeanZ]

Now you have something else to add to the wiki once we get access back.

Hahaha, yep

 

[th-child]

Dorcee has an awol game as of now. That button looks great!

 

[Malpot]

This is Windows 7 and Fire Fox (current)

 

[markattax]

Sorry to hear about your dad, Sheriff. We've lost a couple family members recently way before their time. If I haven't said it already, you definitely go way above the call to make this site something I look forward to playing daily. Awesome work by you and the whole team!

 

[NewSheriffInTown]

Sorry to hear about your dad, Sheriff. We've lost a couple family members recently way before their time. If I haven't said it already, you definitely go way above the call to make this site something I look forward to playing daily. Awesome work by you and the whole team!

Thanks. It's been a struggle. Both with the site and with my dad's passing. I just want both to go smoothly so I can finally sit back enjoy myself, but with lawyers on one hand, and computer glitches on the other, it's been anything other then relaxing. I really got to thank Marcos and the CentCom staff for keeping things running smoothly. Lord knows there were days when I just dumped all the problems in their hands and let them sort it all out!