I've been away from here for quite a while, please excuse my ignorance of the local political issues.

I have a few questions before I get into the bulk of this post:

• Is Dan/Atomic/Whoever still `crashing' people?
• Why is Ed banned? (Aside from being rude and disrespectful to the Powers That Be)
• Does anyone still play?

I've been tossing around the idea of an open-source, freely avalible Avara traker that could run on any UNIX/Windows/OS X server and perform the functions of ASW's proprietary tracker. As this tracker would be in the hands of the community, where it belongs, they would not have to worry about political winds shifting further away from Avara. As long as someone cared to host the tracker, there would be one avalible.

Is there any demand for such a program?
I'd be happy to hear any input from the Avara community.

Thank you for your comments.

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(url="http://"http://www.magnatune.com")www.magnatune.com(/url) - Just Say No Corporate Pop: Use Magnatune!
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513

Quote

Originally posted by Bryce:
**I've been away from here for quite a while, please excuse my ignorance of the local political issues.

I have a few questions before I get into the bulk of this post:

• Is Dan/Atomic/Whoever still `crashing' people?
• Why is Ed banned? (Aside from being rude and disrespectful to the Powers That Be)
• Does anyone still play?
  **

Is Atomic still crashing people? If prior actions indicate an ongoing course, yes he would crash people when he plays.

Why is Ed banned? Not going over it again. Read the posts.
Ed knows what he needs to do to be unbanned, but his actions here required multiple and repeated actions to prove he had changed. He has chosen not to do that.
Does anyone still play? Checking the stats for the tracker right now no server has been activated for 48.5 hours.

Quote

Originally posted by Bryce:
**I've been tossing around the idea of an open-source, freely avalible Avara traker that could run on any UNIX/Windows/OS X server and perform the functions of ASW's proprietary tracker. As this tracker would be in the hands of the community, where it belongs, they would not have to worry about political winds shifting further away from Avara. As long as someone cared to host the tracker, there would be one avalible.

Is there any demand for such a program?
I'd be happy to hear any input from the Avara community.

Thank you for your comments.
**

Is there a demand for such a program? Make it and see. If I were you, I'd make it modular so you could adapt it for other games. Why go through all that programming for a game that is clearly not being played?

------------------
"You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller..."
Weird Al's "It's All About The Pentiums"

I actually have a question for you, Bryce: Why program it for a unix/windows system, while the game is not currently able to be ran on such a system? I understand that is possible, and that may even be the way the curent tracker is being ran now (who knows). However, seeing as how the game is made only for macintosh, I would imagine that only people who still own a mac care for the game enough to host. While, others who may have played in the past and were forced to the dark side (windows), I really honestly doubt that the tracker made for that platform would be used for more than a few weeks by said windows users. Honestly, why host for a game when you can't play it?

I would agree with Taz! on the fact to find if there is such a demand, to make it and see. But I would think it would be more worth your time to make a new Avara, to go along with the new tracker you will be making

------------------
-Kyle "Vader" Blessing
-(url="http://"http://www.homestarrunner.com")Homestar Runner(/url)
-Don't love, or hate... Just join the (Players Club)

I intend to write the tracker in Python so it would be portable, but Classic Mac OS Python is kinda in a world of it's own, so it might take some effort.
Classic Mac OS is not a server OS, it crashes. OS X is a server OS, as are Linux and XP/2000 Windozes.
Having a tracker requires a fixed IP. Normally, only servers have fixed IPs. Servers run server OSes. Therefore, I suspect that the actuall demand for a Mac OS tracker would be limited.

Why don't I write a `new Avara'? Well, although my loyal packet sniffer and I did have a look at some of the packets Avara produces, and the ones for non-game functions (client privledges, chat, etc) are pretty transparent, I have no idea how the protocol works once the game starts. This protocol would have to be reverse-engineered, assuming no co-operation from ASW et al.
Second, if I were to write a game, I'd be allocating that effort towards my RPG engine. Writing a 3D game is non-trivial in terms of algorithms required.

Making the tracker modular is an interesting concept, but to avoid getting ahead of myself - I'd like to make it work with one game first, and perhaps leave hooks for expansion later.
Python makes most non-performance-intensive tasks pretty easy.

Anyway - I'm going to take a look at the tracker's protocol and see how bad it is

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(url="http://"http://www.magnatune.com")www.magnatune.com(/url) - Just Say No Corporate Pop: Use Magnatune!
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513

(This message has been edited by Bryce (edited 04-05-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by Bryce:
**

• Is Dan/Atomic/Whoever still `crashing' people?
  **

When I have been playing with him(recently), he hasn't been crashing people.

Quote

Originally posted by Bryce:
**

• Does anyone still play?
  **

Occasionally.

------------------
How to use a tooth pick: Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
This message brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell

Well, I'm going to be somewhat delayed with this, because I just had some oral surgery, and I'm pretty much susposed to stay in bed as much as possible. (After about an hour of sleeping, I felt good enough to answer my mother's question of Do you need anything?' with An ethernet connection and a laptop.' So I'm not disconnected from reality totaly, and I'm taking the time to teach myself Perl.)

Unfortunatly, as the laptop (Running OS X) I'm using is on a diffrent part of the (switched) network from the machines capible of running Avara acceptibly, and my Linux machine which has the Packet sniffer, so I can't do much in the way of reverse engineering apart from looking at printouts from Ethereal.

I've sent some email to Juri about the protocol, to see if Reverse Engineering can be bypassed entirely, but it's been a couple days and I haven't heard anything from him.

On the bright side, I did get a chance to take a cursorary look at the packets the Avara client sends to the tracker, and they don't look too complex, although there are some oddites that will take working out. I'm also going to need to write a raw socket wrapper for Python, apparently, to test whatever working theories I develop about the protocol. (Raw sockets being nessicary to spoof the sender of the packet, all of Avara's communications are based over UDP, not TCP.)

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.magnatune.com")www.magnatune.com(/url) - Just Say No Corporate Pop: Use Magnatune!
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513

Quote

Is Atomic still crashing people? If prior actions indicate an ongoing course, yes he would crash people when he plays.

Why is Ed banned? Not going over it again. Read the posts.
Ed knows what he needs to do to be unbanned, but his actions here required multiple and repeated actions to prove he had changed. He has chosen not to do that.
Does anyone still play? Checking the stats for the tracker right now no server has been activated for 48.5 hours.

Don't assume. Atomic hasn't crashed anyone in a long time. He's more concerned with getting more people to play now than crashing anybody. He wants the game to live, he's not going around trying to kill it with crashing anybody who plays.

And I don't know what to do to get unbanned. You guys don't talk to me, how should I know what you want.

------------------

(edit was to fix errant character messing up ubb quote)

(This message has been edited by Taz! (edited 04-09-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**
Don't assume. **

I never do. Actions speak louder than words.

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**(snip)
And I don't know what to do to get unbanned. You guys don't talk to me, how should I know what you want.

**

Go back and read my posts, and the emails. If it's not clear what you need to do - that tells me a lot about you. No matter though.

------------------
"You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller..."
Weird Al's "It's All About The Pentiums"

Quote

Go back and read my posts, and the emails. If it's not clear what you need to do - that tells me a lot about you. No matter though.

All they say is be nice and be 200% or something. Be 200%? That makes no sense man.

I'm trying to help this guy out here. He's asking questions and you won't answer him honestly.

He asked if Dan crashed people and you told him an incorrect answer. Dan doesn't crash people anymore, there's no one to crash. So it's a blatant lie when you say "yes he would crash people when he plays". You're just assuming he does because he did in the past. I used to crap myself when I was a baby, I would hope you'd assume I don't anymore.

He asked why I'm banned. You said you didn't want to go over it.

The only honest answer you gave was about whether or not people play anymore and that's the question I didn't touch on. I am trying to help people Taz, but it's hard if you mislead them.

You have it set in your mind that no matter what I say I'm being a dick. Trust me, I could post anything and you'd attack me for it. So how the hell am I supposed to get treated fairly when you absolutely refuse to? It's childish dude.

And I can't find any e-mails you've sent me, what address did you use?

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**
All they say is be nice and be 200% or something. Be 200%? That makes no sense man.
**

Yes, 200% does mean something. Go back to math 101. It means instead of you just being helpful for a few months, you have to be BETTER than helpful - follow up. Hold hands. Step by step. Again - if you don't understand this that tells a lot about you and your attitude.

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**I'm trying to help this guy out here. He's asking questions and you won't answer him honestly.

He asked if Dan crashed people and you told him an incorrect answer. Dan doesn't crash people anymore, there's no one to crash. So it's a blatant lie when you say "yes he would crash people when he plays". You're just assuming he does because he did in the past. I used to crap myself when I was a baby, I would hope you'd assume I don't anymore. **

Now I understand what the problem is. You still don't understand. I did not give an incorrect answer. Read it again and try to understand that what I said earlier and what I say now are both truthful and correct.

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**
He asked why I'm banned. You said you didn't want to go over it.

The only honest answer you gave was about whether or not people play anymore and that's the question I didn't touch on. I am trying to help people Taz, but it's hard if you mislead them. **

Don't say I'm misleading them when I'm not. Again- this illustrates that you don't understand.

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**
You have it set in your mind that no matter what I say I'm being a dick. Trust me, I could post anything and you'd attack me for it. So how the hell am I supposed to get treated fairly when you absolutely refuse to? It's childish dude.

And I can't find any e-mails you've sent me, what address did you use?
**

Trust you? Not yet. You still post things like this and twist things around until you're the victem. Sorry, that doesn't play here. I don't have anything set in my mind about you - I do judge you by your actions and what you say here. Always have - always will.

If you feel you're being treated like a child - perhaps you should examine how you're acting.

As far as emails - meh. I tossed those years ago.

------------------
"You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller..."
Weird Al's "It's All About The Pentiums"

You two attack each other on every topic! That gets very annoying, so why don't you just forget about it, and just answer the question, WITHOUT bickering.

The first and second questions I can't answer as I'm a newbe, but as for the last one, not very many people play now. I think it died years ago.

------------------
"If life gives you a lemon, wing it right back and add some lemons of your own."
-Bill Watterson
(url="http://"http://www.aresaxis.us")Enigma(/url) <-- The best online game ever.
(url="http://"http://www.evula.org/evweb/")TS(/url) <-- My site redone.

Edgar, I swear, you turn another topic into a pitty party on what has happened in the past, I will karma slap you. I say that, because I know I'm getting tired of reading the same d*** thing in practically every subject that is made. I'm also sure that I am not the only one, for example, look at EVWeb's post.

Taz!, please, ignor Edgar.

Bryce, when I made the comment on you making another game, it was a joke I don't expect anyone to make an "Avara 2". However, if this tracker would be able to be adapted to something you may make later, or you just want to see if you can do it, that's awesome. I look forward to your work.

------------------
-Kyle "Vader" Blessing
-(url="http://"http://www.homestarrunner.com")Homestar Runner(/url)
-Don't love, or hate... Just join the (Players Club)

Ug. Taz, Ed, please stop. Ed - although I agree that you didn't deserve the treatment you got because of Dan's actions, and that you were initally banned unjustly, you're behavior since then has been really awful. (On the other hand, your rudeness has little to do with Avara, and I see no reason why you should be banned, other than enforcing the social order.)

As to the project -
I'm out of bed and about. My haitus was productive, even if I pick strange projects while on painkillers. (I wrote a Python script that automaticly posts vitrolic flames to a web board, directed at a perticularly deserving pervert; and also some other stuff. I don't care if anyone thinks that a flame-bot is an unworthy and immature thing to create, I know that. And it's not yet illegal to code under the influence in my state.)

So, I should get back to Avara shortly. I'll keep you posted.

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.magnatune.com")www.magnatune.com(/url) - Just Say No Corporate Pop: Use Magnatune!
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513

Ok I'll stop. Vader I didn't realize it was getting that serious. I really don't want a karma slap man, I just thought it was all fun and games. There's no need to get serious about this here, I can control myself. Seriously dude just please don't karma slap me, I'll be cool man, I'll be cool.

I agree I can turn things around on people and turn it into little bitter attacks but there was a question posed about me here. I mean...I feel if I'm the subject I should be at least allowed to chime in on the issue.

What was the last post I responded in? One about the need for some sort of constant server system so as to preserve the game? The thing I'm ready and willing to offer? I'm just saying some of this stuff can pertain to me and just because you don't like my answers doesn't mean they're only meant to be disruptive.

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Quote

Now I understand what the problem is. You still don't understand. I did not give an incorrect answer. Read it again and try to understand that what I said earlier and what I say now are both truthful and correct.

I don't think what he asked was whether or not prior actions indicate an ongoing course, he asked whether Dan still crashes people. You're not capable of giving an answer with any evidence or certainty. I am. I therefore see no problem with me then answering the question, especially if circumstances require that I also refute an insinuation of yours which is false. It's very simple.

------------------

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**Ok I'll stop. Vader I didn't realize it was getting that serious. I really don't want a karma slap man, I just thought it was all fun and games. There's no need to get serious about this here, I can control myself. Seriously dude just please don't karma slap me, I'll be cool man, I'll be cool.

snip

**

clap clap clap Yet another example of your idiocy. Bravo Edgar, bravo... You don't know all of what moderators have access to, do you? sigh...

------------------
-Kyle "Vader" Blessing
-(url="http://"http://www.homestarrunner.com")Homestar Runner(/url)
-Don't love, or hate... Just join the (Players Club)

Quote

clap clap clap Yet another example of your idiocy. Bravo Edgar, bravo... You don't know all of what moderators have access to, do you? sigh...

What? All you can do is ban me. So? Are you trying to threaten me or something?

------------------

Stop stealing my topic!
Go start your own. This topic is about an Open-source Avara tracker...
(Progress has been minimal. Been busy inciting revolution on MegaTokyo's forums, writing a chron, and programming a new webscraper. Sorry.)

------------------
(url="http://"http://www.magnatune.com")www.magnatune.com(/url) - Just Say No Corporate Pop: Use Magnatune!
"It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the emnity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones." -- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513

Quote

Originally posted by FriendOfFreedom:
**What? All you can do is ban me. So? Are you trying to threaten me or something?

**

I don't know, but it seems you are trying to get banned agian.

------------------
How to use a tooth pick: Hold stick near center of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion.
This message brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell

Quote

Originally posted by Bryce:
**Stop stealing my topic!
Go start your own. This topic is about an Open-source Avara tracker...
(Progress has been minimal. Been busy inciting revolution on MegaTokyo's forums, writing a chron, and programming a new webscraper. Sorry.)

**

Sorry Bryce, but you opened the doors when you asked those three original questions. You should have thought about what kind of responses you might get.

But, best of luck with your project.

------------------
"You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller..."
Weird Al's "It's All About The Pentiums"