Perpetr8r the Perpetu8r's BYOND website

Harry Potter

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:15:33 GMT

XD Whatever you do, don't take this blog post too seriously. It's a synopsis for the first Harry Potter book. (Naturally, I'm bored enough to think this stuff up)

"Harry Potter is a book about a young teenage boy who discovers he can create a magical feeling by playing with his wand. He is joined by friends Ron and Hermione who also have wands to play with (this explains much about Hermione's personality) and together they go on an adventure to a fantastic school to learn how to play with their wands safely without putting someone's eye out.

Harry's first encounter with wands is thanks to a big hairy man named Hagrid, who shows Harry that a short, pink and flabby wand can work just as well as a long, black one. After some misadventures in an old shack with Harry's foster family, Hagrid takes our young hero to a pub and then out the back where Hagrid uses his want to introduce Harry to the land of magic for the first time.

During this encounter, Harry learns that people who play with their wands have formed a secret society and call themselves "wizards" and "witches". In this society, safe from the accusatory glances of the wandless, (or "muggles" as they are known in magic land) witches and wizards can play with their wands in public, and even study and develop the arts of wand use further!

Harry is sent to study at the prestigious Hogwarts Academy, where the headmaster Dumbledore shows Harry that even old wands still work if used right. In fact, Dumbledore is SO good at wand usage that he is widely known as the best "wizard" around. Harry secretly hopes to someday claim that title as his own, but he has a long way to go before his magical feelings mature enough for that.

There is a dark side to the land of "witches" and "wizards" however. The evil "wizard" Voldemort has wand envy of Harry and has been trying to take away Harry's magical feelings ever since Harry was just a defenseless baby! Fortunately for Harry, his mom was an even better "witch" than Voldemort and she turned his own wand against him, causing Voldemort to spray himself with his own terrible essence. Voldemort was weakened for a long time after that, unable to even do so much as lift his wand at Harry, and thus Harry was safe to live his life. UNTIL NOW.

Voldemort has returned, and this time he intends to make sure that Harry can never play with his wand ever again. History repeats itself and Voldemort's wand will once again rise to try and puncture Harry's innocence, and only Harry himself can possibly stop this new menace from bursting the fragile membrane of joy that he holds so dear.

Will he succeed? Only time will tell..."

An update on PRPR's progress

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:00:17 GMT

I promised I'd do one, so here it is: basically just an updated version of my hosted file which details a little of the things I programmed for PRPR. It's not much, but I like to keep a bit of the mystery rather than tell you EVERYTHING that's going to be released when the update is done. Either way, things are looking really good.

If I keep up this pace, good things are possible in the near future. Don't wanna say too much yet ;)

1 AM blog post of awesome?

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:58:14 GMT

So... I never really post much on here these days. I HAVE been recently active, (see my review for Space Station 13) just not on here. The reason being of course is that I have more than enough going on in my life as is, without needing to pander to the strange creatures that lurk about my blog like bloated flies on a fresh carcass.

Nevertheless, I have decided to update this briefly just so that said flies could have some fresh meat to spit digestive juices onto before sucking them back up again. Yum. God, see this is what happens when I write a blog at 1 AM. I hope you're all happy. I'm going to bed now before it gets worse.

Maybe soon I'll outline some more of my plans for the ever-elusive PRPR update :P

The World R:2

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:24:57 GMT

Well lately I've been playing The World R:2, and I decided it was high time to let the gaming community know what I think of it (since my opinion is SOOOOO important ;P).

I have separated my review into two sections: Congrats and Whinges (C&W for short). I'll start with the congrats, firstly because there are less of them and secondly because I still like the game and I want people to look at the good before the bad.

-CONGRATS-
RP. The game is an RPers heaven, because it's overrun by PKs and secrets. The game is expansive, and offers little info on how to play, so there is always something to be discovered or a person to aim to beat. The chaos gate allows you to train in many different locations, and it spreads the player base out a bit, which means you don't always level up in the same places as other people (good for avoiding PKs).

Now being a big secret fan, this game really appeals to me. Anyone who has read the manga or watched the anime will know that The World is supposed to have a lot of secrets. This game emulates that fairly well. I've seen the Twilight Key (in use by a GM), epitaph users and secret weapons floating in the middle of nowhere. And I'm told I haven't discovered everything yet, which keeps my eyes open and my senses keen.

Levelling system is surprisingly easy, provided you aren't PKed or killed whilst levelling up. Some monsters give excellent exp, and are easy to kill, which means if you camp them you're sure to level up nice and fast. Once you get past level 20 you get another levelling spurt, which normally takes you up past level 30 easily. Then you REALLY kick other player's asses when they mess with you.

As for the game interface, HP and SP are easily visible, and once you macro the attack command its as simple as pressing a button to kick butt. The skills are all available through a stat menu (for some reason), but at least it makes them easy to access. Shops appear in a similar tab, and the chaos gates are operated through clicking, which is easy enough. All in all, it doesn't take long to settle into the controls and move on.

Finally, items don't play such a big part in the game, so you don't have to worry about collecting a heap of money to get the awesome weapons or whatever. This is a good thing, since the PKing system pretty much screws you over on the money front. More on that in the whinges section, which is next.

-WHINGES-
Ugh, where do I start? Actually that IS a good start (the beginning). You begin the game in town, and you have no idea about anything. There's no help menu so of course you have to blunder your way through the controls until you work it out. It took me 3 levels to realize I had to equip my weapon (by single clicking it), and a further 20 levels before someone told me the shop appears in the stats bar. Really, how do they expect people to guess that, when there's already like FIVE stat menus?

Ok the first thing that I found, and also my greatest discontent with the game, is the whole PK system. I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed newbie, and gaining levels fast because I get the hang of things quick when lo and behold, a level like... 20 logs on. And what do they do? Why they procede to spam kill everyone in the vicinity, and anyone who comes back to the only spot that newbies CAN level up. Well great. I wasn't pleased already but I can handle a little PK. After all, player versus player never takes exp or anything since you can't always control it, right?

WRONG! By some pitiful programming mishandling, being PKed not only causes you to lose HALF OF YOUR CURRENT EXP, it also give the PKer HALF OF YOUR GOLD! And of course, newbies are given $1500 to start with and nothing to spend it on, so what do you think happens? Yep, the veteran players log in, "harvest" all the newbies, then buy super power-ups with their ill-gotten gains, making them even more untouchable! This is of course, from ANY decent programmer's point of view, unbalanced and easily exploited and should be fixed, right?

Wrong again... and I bet you saw THAT one coming. No, in fact they hide behind the excuse that it's based on .hack and is supposed to be like that. Well ok, I'll go out on a programming limb and say it's ok for high-level players to TOTALLY CUT OFF ALL LEVELLING FOR NEWBIES, but even on that extreme, adding an exp and gold penalty is just beyond stupid. I mean really, you might as well just give everyone ELSE money when a newbie logs in for all the good the gold does them!

And are there places to store your gold or items so they are safe from PKs? Nope. You have to keep ALL of your items with you, and oh did I forget to mention that when you die the PK ALSO gets to take one of your unequipped items? Bye bye armor you just saved up for and bought. PK gets shiny new breastplate because he just happens to be a higher level. It's beyond retarded and just makes the game creator look like a total noob. His refusal to fix it makes him look even MORE noobish, and it's just... gah!

In order to simply survive in that game I've had to use all of my skills and wit to AVOID the PKers I can do nothing about, while still trying to get strong enough to surpass them and turn the tables. Now that may sound fun but it's really not. It's like playing a game of chasey with your legs tied together. Oh sure, it's a great CHALLENGE, but falling on your face aint fun, especially when it happens OVER and OVER and all you're trying to to is just play the damn game! Out of everything, I suspect this whole PK mishap is most of what's keeping the game from being really popular.

What else? Um... the levelling system, though very easy, can be disrupted big-time, say, by someone camping out the area where the good exp monsters are. Or even better, a PK yoinking HALF of your hard-earned exp and money to use to further their own personal cause -_-. Yeah I'm going to whine about PKs every chance I get from now on, and I've totally earned it, since I've FOUGHT TOOTH AND NAIL to be their level and be able to PK back. Anyway, a PK infested map or just simply overpopulation (like 4 people in one area is very easily too much, yet another shortcoming of the map) can stretch the time it takes to level up from 5 mins to 2 and a half hours. Ouch.

Saving. There's no auto save, so if for some reason the game blows up then you're thoroughly screwed unless you saved recently... and the only place to save is in town for some reason. Or say you get the login bug and suddenly you find yourself staring at a black screen and know that you've just lost that rare item you collected because of a bug. Hooray. Oh the upside is that it saves whenever you are PKed and your item is taken! Isn't that great? Oh wait... NO IT ISN'T.

Training areas are too small. PKs are REWARDED for doing shit-all! SP attacks do pathetic damage much of the time. Some classes are just awesome and others are pitiful. PKs are REWARDED for doing shit-all! Monsters vary wildly, from things that can be killed easily for enormous exp, to things that are damn near invulnerable and kick ass... and give shite exp. Oh, did I mention THAT PKs ARE REWARDED FOR DOING SHIT-ALL?!

"Still", you must be saying, "after all this you continue to play regardless so you must like it." Yeah, I do. The PK thing is just really fucked-up and the game owner refuses to listen to reason, even if it is backed by a successful game and a skilled coder. He also gives all his GMs the epitaphs, so one really cool part of the game is lost to a bunch of people who already have too much power anyway.

There's just so many things NOT to like, and yet I continue to play and enjoy playing The World R:2. I think it's the secrets and ease of gaining levels to be honest... I spend more time mucking around in search of rare items than I do grinding, and I enjoy that immensely. Provided we don't have things like this morning where PKs totally ruled the server and nobody could do anything because they had all the power and blocked off all the training areas, the game can be fun and challenging and causes you to think things out more.

There are no safety restraints, and mistakes hurt bad. You really sharpen up fast on there... that or ragequit like so many players I've seen XD

Also, I refuse to add it to my favourites until Max changes the goddamn PK system! Save the newbs!

Ok... um...

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:24:19 GMT

Well this is too entertaining NOT to say. BYOND's current ranking system has always been open to what's happened, but nobody was ever game to waste hundreds of dollars on buying memberships to bribe noobs to rank their game before. What we have now is essentially a Paris Hilton situation on BYOND, and it's quite hillarious. I've decided not to name names, though I'm sure it's pretty obvious who I am talking about anyway.

In any case, there's a certain game that's only been up a few weeks and already it's on the front page of the BYOND ranking system. Wow it's a good game, huh? NO! XD What's awesome is this one guy has just bought out like 15 memberships and ranked his own game (not all the memberships were for him of course, but rather for people who he could count on as loyal). And when I make a rant about it he's all "Ooh publicity! *pose*" LMFAO! Ok, at first I was pissed about some guy stealing rank but now it's actually working in my favor. Just like Paris Hilton got famous by doing something stupid and stirring up a frenzy that's exactly what he's doing and what makes it even better is that if he keeps it up, eventually he's going to hit rank 1.

When that happens I'm going to laugh so hard I cry, because it'll make BYOND look like noobland. That alone is pretty funny, but what happens next is the best part. The hard-working members/staff of BYOND aren't going to stand for that crap. Suddenly, we're going to find ourselves in DIRE NEED of a proper review system and SUDDENLY games will be ranked depending on number of hits, time spent playing, votes from players AS WELL AS votes from members. Keys, MAC addresses and IPs will be checked, logged and noted by the system which will, for the most part, make sure that no duplicate votes are being accepted. The games that people honestly enjoy and play will find themselves at the top of the list and all the little noob games will be back down at the bottom where they belong.

Here I was thinking you had to fight the system to get what you want, but Mr Noob has shown me that I don't have to lift a finger against BYOND... all you have to do is abuse the system legally and watch everyone go "Oh shit... we gotta fix this." This is no longer MY problem, it's EVERYONE's problem, and I'm going to sit back and watch the fun.

To all you other game developers out there who made a quality game only to watch it get surpassed byt a rank-whore: I hope you're listening, cause this is headed in your direction... right up your own colon. Kick up a fuss, by all means. After all YOU are the true contributors to BYOND, and YOU matter.

Happy rant

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:53:27 GMT

Well since I've been busy yelling at BYOND a lot lately, I thought I'd take the time and make a sort of counter-rant... cause there ARE good things happening on BYOND too. For one thing, my game has made it to rank 30, and also the front page of the BYOND's top-ranked games. That makes me happy XD.

Secondly, the response from BYOND staff and members in response to my previous rant has given me more faith that BYOND is not going to hell... at least not as much :P The odd thing about good stuff is it tends to be less... emphasized than bad stuff, so we don't appreciate it as much I guess. Although I have to say, hitting that top page of BYOND games was goooood (I only wish the rankings were more fair... I can't tell if I really deserve it or not). Still, it's given me more drive to hurry up and finish this update already, so I'm working hard on it.

In fact, I'm taking time off programming to write this rant so I should really get back to it. If my game doesn't deserve its position now, then it certainly will in the update. 'till then!

We're all safe

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:07:56 GMT

Well I contacted BYOND the other day with regards to what I believed to be a dangerous file and abuse thereof. Their response was little more than a "brush off" without even taking the time to check the validity of my claim. That pissed me off. I even got a copy of the program to offer to them so that they could further protect themselves from any security loopholes they might have, and they told me: "It's impossible to 'hack' the DM file of a game. Period. More than likely, you've been sent a trojan or virus... We would advise that you scan the file and promptly delete it. Next time, be more skeptical of such claims"

Well ok, I've scanned the file and it's NOT a virus. And since BYOND is telling me to be skeptical of the claim that it is actually capable of exploiting games I'm going to go ahead and host the file on my little member space. After all, BYOND and my virus scanner just verified that it is completely harmless, and so it's perfectly allowed for me to host this file on my site. Btw BYOND, I'm keeping your little email, just in case for some IMPOSSIBLE reason the file IS an illegal file and you DO have users on BYOND abusing it. But since you have assured me that it's safe or at least not capable of harming any BYOND programs, I'm going to go ahead and put it up, and if anyone wants to test it they can just go ahead and do so.

Let's hope you're right, hey?

Oh and airport security was perfectly safe a few years back too. The Titanic was never going to sink. Bill Clinton did NOT have sexual affairs with that woman. Sheesh.

EDIT: Well there you have it... seems it's a hex editor which is capable of spoofing keys and IP addresses (amongst other things) within a game... though apparently mainly only works on host side. Since I now know this I'm taking the file down... on a side note I passworded the rar file so nobody could get in anyway (this was mainly to prove my point, I'm not spreading an exploit all over BYOND). Still, Nova recognised it and well, now we know. Thanks BYOND, I feel so much safer now that you're here. As an added note this only confirms that there WAS an abuse which led to a defamation of a player, though we caught it out and righted things before it got away.

I hope I've at least made a statement here... I was right and I got ignored, had I been of malicious intent I could have screwed BYOND over good. Listen to me next time.

Wow

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:24:19 GMT

Seems my little rant actually had a pretty fast effect, though no reaction from Dantom (not like I expected any). Anyway, things took a turn for the better, so I guess I'll just go back to work on the update for now and see how things turn out.

No big rant from me this time, mainly cause I just did one on the forums.

BYOND's ranking system

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:19:12 GMT

Well I was midly surprised to see a game that outranked PRPR on the BYOND hub! At first I was tempted to go congratulate whoever it was on making such a quality Pokemon game to achieve more fame then mine! But oh wait, what's this on the hub? "Free ultimate pokemon to people who add us to their favourites!"

Oh. So THAT'S your game. Thanks to BYOND's fucked-up ranking system, we now have sub-par noob games BRIBING BYOND members for rank! First I would like to congratulate the noobs who made the game on reaching a new low in online game-making. Secondly, would you please give a hand to Dantom for after all this time and promises of a new ranking system to have NOT done a single thing about it. Well done, it must feel good sleeping on that pile of donations and listening to unhappy players scream in frustration.

Yeah, I'm pissed off. I've been here two years now, and most of that time I have been working hard to achieve a place on the BYOND hubpage where my game would get the credit it deserves. Since Dantom was all like "lol well now NOBODY gets on until we make this new system that's 6 months late so far" I settled for just being the highest-ranked Pokemon game on BYOND. AND EVERY SINGLE FAVOURITE THAT I GOT I EARNED. Not ONCE did I beg people to add it to their favourites, nor did I offer bribes to get rank. I MADE A GOOD GAME. Meanwhile, BYOND just goes right ahead and exploits its user base, charging donations just so you can get your opinion heard!

This is fucked up. SERIOUSLY fucked up. I'm wondering if I should even be helping out BYOND as much as I am. And yeah, I am. When an unfortunate BYOND BUG pwipe hit us, we had over 15 000 save files on our server. Given the knowledge that some players multi-key, it's still reasonable to assume that probably 8000 people played my game in the year and a bit it's been up. Many of those came from outside sources, and only downloaded BYOND to play PRPR. Now, a month after the pwipe, we're back to 3k saves again. Well good on me, I've fed Dantom's growing greed and in return I get to watch as noob games whore themselves out for the title of being the best, which they did NOT earn in the slightest.

If this keeps up, in a few years all BYOND will have is a tired-out library of old games that were made by programmers who actually care, and thousands upon thousands of high-ranked frankenstein games, built entirely off of other people's hard work and coding from libraries donated by coders who had no idea what they were unleashing upon the BYOND community. Oh well, you get what you deserve. If things don't change soon this update will be the last thing I ever make for BYOND, then they can kiss my ass as I take my games to somewhere the admins care, where I get my due for the work I do, and all my players can just come along with me.

Even if I am the last person on BYOND who gives a fuck, I'm going to make a difference.