So let’s make the first post of 2009 in here. First of all: Happy new Year!
After updating Wordpress and the start of our new I-Mod Design I felt the impulse to post something,
so here it is:

Vacances, what a beautiful word - but there is the I-Mod server, who as of course a word to say in that issue…

We write saturday, the 31. January 2008 2009. After my weekly saturday-radiocast I had the glorious idea to carefully look after the status of our server. So I entered the URL to Plesk and the fun started:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function of_get_key_by_product() in D:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\admin\plib\common_func.php3 on line 4506

“Hurray!”, I thought, Murphy doesn’t want you to have vacances…
After11 hours wasted with fightinh against Windumb 2003 resignation captured me and I activated suddenly the Support of Keyweb. 3 hours later - we had 2 o’clock in the morning - I went dog-tired to bed.

“The next morning” I encountered a surprisingly happy awakening - Plesk was running! But the good feeling did not last for a longtime, because of the fact, that it did not the thing I wanted it do do - as the cherry on the cake with lots of cryptic Errors…the odysee of searching began…

So I fought till Tuesday, the 3th of February 2009 (4 days of my holiday!)  against mailservercrashes, incompatibilites of AV-applications (Don’t for christ’s sake replace ClamAV by something other! Never!) and a moderate loose of files. All this fun only because Parallels seems do be to poor to spend some money in something equal to a so called “quality assurance”. Well, it seems to be the zeitgeist to bring unstable beta-version on the market, as also game publishers like Bethesda proof, who pleased us with a Fallout 3 which only made one thing reliably - crash. As my german teacher likes to say to this occasions: “Oh Times, Oh Morals!” (german: “Oh Zeiten! Oh Sitten!).

Whatever, I wouldn’t be the guy I am, when I couldn’t handle that. (Yes, I know:  self-sraise stinks! But this time I really deserved it.) and can now (hopefully) begin to enjoy my freetime.

I wish all of you a stressless week and that you keep safe of that kind of farces.

Just finished some of the MMV-ACS (Anti-Cheat-System). It is using AES, the advancec encryption standard which is a very good encryption, so I do not think it makes sense to try to find a workaround

It also took a while to implement the binding for the new password encryption, but finally I worked it out.

Atm I am cranking out the last bit of the ACS and parallel to that starting to write the adminapplication from which the developers application will be inherited. I am sorry I can not make this portable, but our encryption-algorithms only work on windoze. But I am quite sure it will work with wine (didn’t try yet).

You can find all these new stuff on the svn! Oh wait… damn, you do not have an account for it. OK, let’s get another cup of coffee…..

For a lot of this week I have been working on the website side of the MMV. With most of the features now in place, I’ve been focusing on building the visuals and bugfixing; I have spent a lot of time working on the avatar system.

Although I can’t say what will be in it, I will say that the MMV offers everything the original Metaverse does, plus a bit more .

For now, you can check out the progress on the I-Mod forums or go to http://mmv.i-mod-productions.com/ where the site will soon be unveiled!

Hi Leute,

ich habe heute schonwieder gelesen, wie sich jemand in einem Forum über die “schlampige Übersetzung” von GC2:EU ausgelassen hat. Jedoch war dieser Jemand nicht im Kalypso-Forum wo alle Informationen diesbezüglich stehen. Ich meine muss es wirklich sein auf anderen rumzuflamen obwohl die am wenigsten dafür können? Wir haben unsere Übersetzung ich will sagen “perfekt” fertig gehabt. Sie funktionierte mit der Original-TotA Version in der *ALLES* übersetzt war und ich meine wirklich *ALLES*. Da war kein Wort mehr auf Englisch.

Nun haben wir den Kram an Kalypso geschickt, die den Kram an Stardock und was rausgekommen ist, wissen wir ja alle…ich möchte nun nochmal nur darauf hinweisen, dass geflame nichts bringt, postet bei Kalypso oder bei Stardock, damit die sich beeilen. Wir haben auch schon uns rangesetzt und SD-Bugs (!) gefixt damit der Patch asap fertig wird.

In Zukunft also ein bisschen mehr Objektivität, in Ordnung Leute?

-Sven

*phew*

Just got out of a meeting on the anti-cheat-system of the I-Mod Metaverse (sorry guys, not cheating in competive games). I won’t get you a clue how it works, even if I do not think you could find a workaround even if you knew.

Right know I am starring at a list of ~120 lines of things ‘n’ stuff that need to get into the code somehow. Damned, I really have to work! Can’t tell you much about it, you know, internal, not public, top secret stuff.

So, lets get to the more interesting points. First of all, the program will get an I-Mod specific skin, which can be replaced by the systems default using little button.

The maybe even more interesting thing is a qoutation (meeting was on IRC due to 2 guys without microphones…):

• *censored_1* has joined the channel!
• <*censored_2*> Finally he came
• <*censored_3*> Appeared, not came
• <*censored_2*> oops

Modifying game content, and making your own game on the base of an existing game, that’s an easy introduction into game design. Especially a Total Conversion mod, that completely replaces all original game content by new one. But modding can start very small, changing the color of an imagine in a game is also called modding, but today I want to speak about creating new games on base of an existing game.

I started the real game design modding with 16.  At this time I tried myself with several other talented guys on a Startrek Mod for GalCiv 2. Aim was the total replacement of GalCiv 2 stuff through Startrek stuff. The project went into other hands some month later and just a couple of months later I started the X3 Mod for GalCiv 2.

Today i’m 19 and this Mod is nearly finish. Over the past 2 Years I replaced the content of GalCiv 2 with X3 stuff, some models, movies and text extracted of X3 and much selfmade content. When you see the mod now and compare it with the vanilla game, you would think it’s a new game. And that’s what I am aiming on, creating a new game. I have too less skills to make a game on my own, I can’t program, nor can I texture modells very well. But I have several skills in graphic design, text and I am very creative in creating new features and problem solving. GalCiv 2 gave me the chance, to use this skills and make my own game, through the huge modability.
Modding makes fun, as it doesn’t need that much skills as making complete new games from stock. I’m not playing any computergames anymore for fun, I might play them to get ideas for mods but thats all, you would call me sick now but I have more fun on modding then on playing. Getting new ideas makes me feel good, and creating new game stuff even better.

I Invite you all to start modding, it’s easy and can make fun, maybe you also like it sometimes that much as me. If you need help on modding or want to create a mod team, I-Mod Productions, the Modding Community I’m the head of can help you. It’s our job and will to take modding to the next level.

I think modding has so much potential, you have one basic game and with this game structure you can create uncountable new games on it. As far as companies allow you to use there stuff for modding it’s fun. I think modding is the future, and stardock prepared for it. Good game structures last, and mods can be made years after it, so they won’t be forget.

What are your experiences and oppinions about modding?

let me hear

Hi all there!

I wanted to give you a little statement whats going on with the Manager: The Basic functions are implemented and fully working. I will implement some advanced and account specific functionality now and let Stefan have some fun with giving the Manager a specific Design, after that I will grab one or two of you guys and have a short (planning max 1 week) Beta, after that there will be the 1.0 release.

There won’t be too much functionality in the 1.0, if you need more just tell me, YOU decide what’s in the next Version. This is a tool the community shall be able to do good work with, so the Community decides what is needed.

For the ones who can not wait, here is the most important stuff to do before the 1.0:

• Registration function for accounts
• Registration function for teams
• Some “forgot password” stuff
• Change password/E-Mai etc.
• Redesigning the interface
• Multilanguage support

There will be offline-functionality in a later version (via XML), but this will be a bit later, when the first feature requests have been build in.

Oh, and be sure that your passwords won’t be hacked, even if they get into the database, the password is hashed with SHA512, so it is impossible to rebuild it. You enter your password, the program hashes it and compares the resulting hash with the one in the Database.

I’m waiting for your comments, hoping that there are some posts that can help me to make it a good tool for you

Cronk aka Lukas

Hi Guys!

I am very happy to announce, that the DevBlog is dead, long lives the DevBlog!
As you see, we have a new theme and everyone can register and post from now on!
(If you just registered, you can only make Drafts, which will be checked by an Admin and if they are free of Spam or other annoying stuff, they will be unlocked and your account will be updated to “author” so you can make drafts AND publish them by yourself!)

Happy Blogging!

Many of you will I’m sure have heard of the GalCiv2 Metaverse. It is a web-based system that lets players upload games and compare and compete against others. Well, for a long time Mods were not allowed on the official Metaverse.

Not any more. The unofficial Mod Metaverse, which I will soon release into a public beta, allows players to manually upload games played with mods and have them scored. It utilises a new feature added in DA 1.8 that produces an XML file at the end of every game. This is the file that is uploaded to the MMV.

So long, and happy modding!