The Life of a Game

[Meikura001]

I was logging in one day through R2's forum display page, and I saw this one message out of curiosity, so I thought I would have a "look-see". It was a "shutdown" message of a mobile game that probably wasn't running for more than a year. While I don't do the "mobile" thing, I often wonder what would be the reason(s) why it would warrant its shutdown. The end part is that R2 will gladly compensate 50% of the total monies spent on that game alone (to be used towards another mobile game) and that all information like character data, inventory, progress, achievements, etc. will be reset. So basically, they are running away with half of your money, and giving you half into getting "ahead" into another game.

Sounds enticing, but here is my question: "why would anyone go into another R2 game if all we ever get is treated badly by them or very bad gaming experiences?" In my case, I am sitting right in the middle of the fence between fully quitting/never looking back AND to keep on playing until it shuts down for good. A lot of good players either have quit fully or have not been active as they would have; hell, most cashers gave up spending in the wake of R2's shenanigans. You, as a developer, might think you're smart, but the players are smarter. While I don't advocate any form of cheating on this game, I really don't blame those who do so since R2's allowing it to keep going, and in the process, hurting the legitimate player base.

My game play (active, not afk) time is limited to 10 minutes total in a day. Some events I participate in because I have the items and I can make due, and some I just skipped because it's just pointless. And please don't get me started on the rewards (like the clothing stuff) where you have to literally buy if you want to get the title for the full set; and even if at that, the clothes just looked terrible. Can I really ask, whose idea was it to make clothing glitter? I wouldn't mind the "ninja" wear in this time frame's events, but the glitter just killed it for me. Many of us who play Wartune want to dress to kill (or to be a badass), not be fairies (no offense to those who are into that sort of thing).

Everything aside, this game is going to head towards that sandbox we all kept hearing about. Soon we will get that sad note when we log into forums. I know games don't last too long, but if everyone had liked it to the point they will keep on spending to keep it alive, it should be reason enough to give it the attention it needs.

That's my "dos centavos".

[Meikura001]

Don't forget that "Spawn Campers" are making the game boring, also.

Wouldn't be much of a problem if R2 could make matching where it's evened out instead of a "free for all" in putting in all the Clifford the Big Red Dogs in the same race as the puppies. Well, there will be flame wars if I go further since I would just say those who are so big in BR and ability often don't have the cojones to square off with those their size for fear in losing. Me, on the other hand, got brass ones as I go find a target that I feel it's at my league to square off with; that sometimes if I hit a weaker player (300k BR versus one of my 1mil+), I am going to apologize and not hit them for the duration of the event, unless of course they hit me and I got drawn into a fight that I have to play it out.

[R239359925]

Don't forget that "Spawn Campers" are making the game boring, also.

[Meikura001]

Well, I tried to find info on codes that would use Javascript to "get" elements, but nothing came up on such. When it was html in the past, I would just use part of a code that was found via YouTube (just three lines of code at the time) and it would just log in once I hit the "dive" button (older program made in the days of Windows 7). My programming isn't all that great as I am learning. Ask me about Applesoft BASIC or Q-Basic, and I might make a program with my eyes closed (if I remember the commands, that is; been 25+ years since).

Tried to refresh within and it was only 15 minutes before conflicts happened across accounts (guess a browser has a sick way of just saving one session, and the last one that is). I wish it was more than 12 hours so I can refresh often within and reboot after 8 hours. So now, I got them as quick launch icons for separate installations that I just hit the X button to close and click on them to open, which is no biggie for now. I will still quest for more info one day when I am not doing a house in the meanwhile.

Two things are on my mind in perfecting my module (aka program) system: ability to time between the execution of tasks (I want it to pause moment between them as placing each line feels like a run on sentence; on AB/QB, I always use For/Next commands to place a space of time between executions) -AND- to find the commands for the Java version to retrieve the variables and then post when it is executed (I had a form that held the login specifics prior to the Java login was made; placed it under suspend by disabling a hot key to bring it up and removing the error lines of code from the main program so the other stuff can work).

Yeah, on Chrome, I got 6 profiles (5 for the game's rewards thing, 1 for Facebook/Banking/YouTube/Forum use) going. When I am not playing the game and I had done my maints (while R2 has theirs going), I just load up the browsers to the main R2 site and "park" the accounts there so they can get what EXP for the rewards thing while I go to sleep. I love that format since I can just refresh the site and the login stays put without conflicting like explorer/edge.

Yeah, have fun with your mini-client. I might give my program another look-see after (and hoping) I can find more info on how to wrangle the Javascript.

[Alsatia01]

Since we know that explorer/edge items are all windows with the same info, no matter how many windows are opened, this is what I had my program to do when it starts up:

• Upon startup, it goes to wartune.r2games.com/user/logout to automatically log out and clear any account that is logged in so it won't have a conflict when multiple windows are opened.
• Then, under a hot key (since I do not know about timing between tasks) I press, it goes into a web address that is programmed. As it loads into the server, and if not logged in, the login box will pop up, prompting you to login.

Unfortunately, when they switched over to the Java based login scheme, I had to go in this way since I know nothing of Java and I had tried looking for info on how to make it work. The old login (html based) was great since I just can pull up the variables (view source) and it can do it in one fell swoop through a routine. However, this one only produces errors so I just stripped it away and went with just logging in manually for each one, which I tend to nearly use the same character structure since each login saves the last one's info.

Too bad VS could not allow me to incorporate Chrome since it's the only browser that you can create multiple profiles and can play independently on each one (refreshing, for an example) without it conflicting with one another. On my "refreshes", I have to take all the windows down and then reboot them. Or if I am doing one, then only that window gets exited and rebooted.

Sounds a bit convoluted. You could incorporate the login information using javascript, directly into the page elements - shame it's not your forte.

On your refreshes, you really have to close all the way down? Surely a page reload wouldn't invalidate the authentication token, unless you go 12+ hours a session.

I'm not particularly familiar with chrome (from a software perspective), but I believe it has part of it's api open-sourced - you might be able to use their own profile system without recreating it yourself.

Thank you by the way, I may give the mini-client another look, if only for giggles.

[Meikura001]

Since we know that explorer/edge items are all windows with the same info, no matter how many windows are opened, this is what I had my program to do when it starts up:

• Upon startup, it goes to wartune.r2games.com/user/logout to automatically log out and clear any account that is logged in so it won't have a conflict when multiple windows are opened.
• Then, under a hot key (since I do not know about timing between tasks) I press, it goes into a web address that is programmed. As it loads into the server, and if not logged in, the login box will pop up, prompting you to login.

Unfortunately, when they switched over to the Java based login scheme, I had to go in this way since I know nothing of Java and I had tried looking for info on how to make it work. The old login (html based) was great since I just can pull up the variables (view source) and it can do it in one fell swoop through a routine. However, this one only produces errors so I just stripped it away and went with just logging in manually for each one, which I tend to nearly use the same character structure since each login saves the last one's info.

Too bad VS could not allow me to incorporate Chrome since it's the only browser that you can create multiple profiles and can play independently on each one (refreshing, for an example) without it conflicting with one another. On my "refreshes", I have to take all the windows down and then reboot them. Or if I am doing one, then only that window gets exited and rebooted.

[Alsatia01]

The "miniclient"/R2 client is nothing more than just a VB.NET/C##/VS program mimicking a web browser object (why you think they always say make sure the flash for Explorer is upgraded). I've made a custom program that does the same but only I had programmed the web addresses of a few servers I play on to make it easier to get on. I still have to manually login since their login system has been changed that made it impossible to automatically login on a button press (compared to the html based login they had before). I am not that well-versed to making a bot if anyone's asking and plus it's against the rules so I don't bother; I just make a program that doesn't have the cumbersome add-ons, tool bars, and other things that eat up memory resources as a web browser does, so I can login my guys when I play.

I had initially thought the "miniclient" was a program version of the game that can be downloaded, installed, and run without having to use a browser to play the game. With that being said, the cache would be always local without the popup asking if I want to store.

How did you setup a manual login? And how did you setup managing the authentication token? I wrote a mini-client for ArmorGames a little while back in java(mostly for giggles, java isn't exactly known for its performance) and those were the biggest hiccups I was having.

[R229619798]

there aren't many successful examples of porting one complex system to another runtime environment without breaking it or rewriting/tweaking some critical points,
let alone wartune won't receive much budgeting or priority from its owner company.
if dev wouldn't even fix a trivial typo like Dark Dragon Lair versus Taranton's Lair, it's overly optimistic to expect them to port its client to a more robust framework.
just enjoy the remaining days it has.

what do u mean by enjoy the remaining days it has ?

[R238423534]

there aren't many successful examples of porting one complex system to another runtime environment without breaking it or rewriting/tweaking some critical points,
let alone wartune won't receive much budgeting or priority from its owner company.
if dev wouldn't even fix a trivial typo like Dark Dragon Lair versus Taranton's Lair, it's overly optimistic to expect them to port its client to a more robust framework.
just enjoy the remaining days it has.

[Meikura001]

Seems a safe bet it will still be Flash, basically the miniclient, tweaked, maybe re-branded, etc.

The "miniclient"/R2 client is nothing more than just a VB.NET/C##/VS program mimicking a web browser object (why you think they always say make sure the flash for Explorer is upgraded). I've made a custom program that does the same but only I had programmed the web addresses of a few servers I play on to make it easier to get on. I still have to manually login since their login system has been changed that made it impossible to automatically login on a button press (compared to the html based login they had before). I am not that well-versed to making a bot if anyone's asking and plus it's against the rules so I don't bother; I just make a program that doesn't have the cumbersome add-ons, tool bars, and other things that eat up memory resources as a web browser does, so I can login my guys when I play.

I had initially thought the "miniclient" was a program version of the game that can be downloaded, installed, and run without having to use a browser to play the game. With that being said, the cache would be always local without the popup asking if I want to store.

[MrFancyPants]

Html5 isn't a language, and calling it an 'engine' really wouldn't be that accurate either..... sorta. It's a set of tools designed to optimize several other web-based tools, particularly where animation is concerned; you can convert flash/as3 elements directly into html5.

Can it be done in 5 minutes, or with just a simple file switches or variable changes? No.
Is it even remotely as difficult as rewriting it in a completely new language? No.

I see where you are coming from though. If their their programmers are half as shoddy as their management, then there's probably no hope for them to figure it out.

P.S. Edit - I believe I saw someone post wartune went green-light for steam; and there's no way that's in flash. So I guess completely re-writing it wasn't off the table for R2 after all.

Granted I don't know a lot about HTML5 or Flash for that matter, and you're right it's not at the level of a complete re-write. They might investigate it if only to expand the game to mobile more easily, but I still think it would be a pretty ugly process to completely convert.

And about steam, see #3 under Technical Details:
https://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/FAQ.php

Seems a safe bet it will still be Flash, basically the miniclient, tweaked, maybe re-branded, etc.

[Alsatia01]

Definitely disagree there, asking their devs to port the whole game over to a new engine, new language, new set of tools, etc. would be a recipe for disaster. They haven't proven a great deal of competence with the established code they have, so asking them to perform a major refit like that would definitely make things worse, at least in the short term. It would be like converting the whole game to a beta version for months on end, and that's after they finished the port. There may be some pretty good automated conversion programs out there, but there's no way this game doesn't require a lot of manual adjustment to get everything to work again.

An HTML5 conversion would be a long-term project, and with the way things are going, the game won't be around long enough for them to even consider it. I'm not optimistic it would be around long enough to even finish the conversion.

Html5 isn't a language, and calling it an 'engine' really wouldn't be that accurate either..... sorta. It's a set of tools designed to optimize several other web-based tools, particularly where animation is concerned; you can convert flash/as3 elements directly into html5.

Can it be done in 5 minutes, or with just a simple file switches or variable changes? No.
Is it even remotely as difficult as rewriting it in a completely new language? No.

I see where you are coming from though. If their their programmers are half as shoddy as their management, then there's probably no hope for them to figure it out.

P.S. Edit - I believe I saw someone post wartune went green-light for steam; and there's no way that's in flash. So I guess completely re-writing it wasn't off the table for R2 after all.

[Meikura001]

Yeah, it will be like building blocks all over again into a new engine; then again, the time has already been squandered as we are writing and reading. I am thinking about Vega Conflict when they made their "Unity" engine and still have the old flash going about as well for those that want to play it. Took me a while to learn some of the commands in Unity as I am not that big of a fan when it comes to flash; well except for those animated shorts like "Happy Tree Friends" (yes I am a sick <expletive>) and "Joe Cartoon". Now, Youtube requires a flash plugin to play their video content (was okay when it was AVI and MPEG).

If I could make a standing list of stuff this game had problems in, I would be making pages and pages that probably will stretch for miles. To fix one or two little (of no importance) things every maintenance is a very big blow to the player base. And some <expletive> happened in times where there is no maint (that it worked the day before); it's like "what in the bloody hell are they doing over there?"

[MrFancyPants]

This is true, you don't need to start all over in order to switch to html5. However there are some things that may need to be changed; it's not quite as easy as just flipping a switch. Still a good idea though.

Definitely disagree there, asking their devs to port the whole game over to a new engine, new language, new set of tools, etc. would be a recipe for disaster. They haven't proven a great deal of competence with the established code they have, so asking them to perform a major refit like that would definitely make things worse, at least in the short term. It would be like converting the whole game to a beta version for months on end, and that's after they finished the port. There may be some pretty good automated conversion programs out there, but there's no way this game doesn't require a lot of manual adjustment to get everything to work again.

An HTML5 conversion would be a long-term project, and with the way things are going, the game won't be around long enough for them to even consider it. I'm not optimistic it would be around long enough to even finish the conversion.

[Alsatia01]

This game could be so much more enjoyable, especially if they just fixed the lag. Now I don't know to much about this area but more than one person has said you can switch from flash to html5 without having to start all over.

This is true, you don't need to start all over in order to switch to html5. However there are some things that may need to be changed; it's not quite as easy as just flipping a switch. Still a good idea though.