Posts on Jun 2011

Hello

I just made my first interview about King Arthur’s Gold. You can read it on nightmaremode.net. It is also time to introduce myself, you will see that I am also the guy behind Soldat.

I also wrote a really long post about how I got to make KAG on my other blog. If you’re interested how it all started head on to http://mm.soldat.pl.

Build 51 released

I’m working fast, I want to fix all the issues so I can focus on the pleasant parts of game making.

There is a bunch of fixes in this version. As well as graphical and network optimizations.

I added a new master ban. This means that if you get banned twice within a period of a few hours you will get banned on all servers for the rest of the day. You won’t be able to download servers lists or join servers. If you get banned by mistake please report the circumstances of when it happened. I will try to fix these issues.

There is also a new map block called Bedrock. It is indestructible. This should make the map more interesting, especially in later stages of the round when everything is dug up. Should also provide some interesting castle placement strategies.

And last but not least the long awaited Knight shield down block!

Changes build 49-51:

– added Show Minimap option to video options (turning off minimap increases performance)
– pixel particles don’t show up if FPS drops below 20
– fixed minimap colors
– fixed grass tile appearing as dirt
– added knight shield down
– optimized netcode: not sending entities out of sight
– gold tile appears more distinct than stone
– fixed console kick not banning
– fixed rcon player possible to kick
– removed invalid net object not found messages
– fixed respawn queues not deleted on client
– global banning added
  (if player gets banned twice in some period of time he gets global banned for a couple hours)
– added new bedrock block (indestructible)
– trees don’t grow now in holes-
– added error message appears if game runs without Administrator privileges
– tweaked speed hack detection
– added s_system config variable to set sound system (for troubleshooting)
    (KAG/Base/Scripts/autoconfig.gm – global s_system =
        0 – autodetect (default)
        1 – DirectSound 8
        2 – DirectSound
        3 – Win MM
        4 – ALSA (Linux)
        5 – Core Audio (MacOSX)
        6 – No sound)

The respawn seconds counter is disabled in this version, I know about this and will fix it later.

KAG’s 1st month

I must admit I’m a bit overwhelmed. Both happy and overwhelmed by the response KAG has gotten. It all started somewhere on reddit and a bunch of people came in playing. Then there was:

Indie Games

PC Gamer

TIGSource

RockPaperShotgun

and yesterday

Kotaku

Everytime a big gaming news site writes about my game new people come and tons of problems come with them :). Every server I have and even don’t have, starts shutting down for some reason and instead of enjoying the flow of people I have to fix stuff. Murphy was right. Everything that can go wrong really goes wrong. Anyway, give me a pat on the back if you feel KAG is worth the effort.

I can’t wait to fix everything and start coding awesome stuff again. I think I’ve decided to switch the default game mode to Capture the Flag. Gold will be used for buying equipment or creating castle rooms.

Build 49 released

As promised I am dealing here with the most critical issues. Mostly spoilers like griefers and hackers. This might not be perfect and please report if you have new problems with this version.

There are a few gameplay changes like the addition of a random heart that spawns out of a slayed enemy. You can pick it up to restore health. This feature is experimental.

Anything, including ladders can now be built directly on a castle background wall without the need for support. This is added so that background walls have more use (before other features come).

There is a new block that can be mined, called thick stone. It has 3x the regular stone block stone amount. So you can build 3 castle blocks from it.

Changes build 45-49:

– smaller cursors
– new archer cursors
– servers list is read from cache incase master is down
– your player has a name tag at all times
– name tags are drawn above player
– fixed end game crash reason
– added healing heart spawning randomly from killed player [experimental]
– ladders can be built anywhere against backgrounds
– anything can be built directly on a castle background wall
– build block cursor snaps to build position
– disabled map border fadeout
– casting another vote time increased to 10 minutes
– default vote kick ban time increased to 60 minutes
– if player being voted disconnects he is banned automatically
– rcon authorized player cannot be kicked
– added basic speedhack protection
– added hand cursor on block placement
– autoupdater does chmod +x on .sh script files
– players banned by IP and additional unique ID
– local server always disconnects if joining foreign server
– fixed map dimensions being too small
– added thick stone resource block (3x stone)
– fixed infinite ground background ladders
– added autorestarting functionality on new build release

To whoever is finding holes in the server security: give me a means of contact and we can work on improving the code.

If you installed KAG in a folder with spaces or () (like C:program files) move the game to c:kag for the autoupdater to work. This is a bug that will be fixed.

I’m gonna be dealing with a number of issues that prevent happy gaming in the next release. It should be out today or tomorrow.

Forum and Wiki are live!

Official King Arthur’s Gold forum & wiki website are online and ready for you to participate in community action!

Forums: http://kagforum.com

Wiki: http://kagwiki.com

The GetSatisfaction page is more for direct issues, problems and for voting ideas (and for giving praise:). Forums are more of a discussion thing where you can hangout and talk with your game enemies (or friends).

Build 45 released

I am dealing with the most critical issues in this release. There are also some new graphics, including a majestic title screen made by Geti!

I’ve spent some time on optimizations so the game squeezes a few more FPS now, which might be an issue with lots of players.

Note about the changelog: some entries from now on will be labeled as [experimental]. This means that I want to try something out. If it is good it will stay, if not it will be removed in the next release. So feedback about these changes is especially appreciated.

Changes 40-45:

– local games do not register in server list
– menu is higher when items go under screen
– fixed missing tutorial display
– server list can now scroll
– fixed infinite rock catapult exploit
– can’t build or fire in break time (temporary fix for server crash)
– all objects are destroyed on server first (server crash on restart fix)
– optimized tile rendering speed by 10-20%
– optimized offscreen particle effects
– optimized too far sounds
– fixed generator crash
– default windowed mode
– added “chmod +x KAG” to dedicatedserver.sh
– fixed dead player floating up
– dead players fall off ladders
– fixed fall through map
– new cursors
– new resources graphics
– fixed crash after kick on client
– new title screen & menu colors
– master servers sends only servers with same build number
– tutorial poster runs automatically after game installation
– added icon for shortcuts
– knight has 1 heart more health [experimental]