More like web 1.7

The update to www.c99.org is now live. The whole site should be valid XHTML 1.0 strict except for the blog, ’cause I’m lazy and still write LJ my posts in HTML 4.01 transitional. Maybe if I get really bored one day I’ll go back and fix the img tags in my 10 most recent public entries.

Monkey!

The exporter works! Below is a screenshot of DCBlap running a map that was edited with Blender:

DCblap.blend part 2

Blender now imports the UV coordinates properly:

Now, to write the export script…

$2!

Last month I took a random survey that offered $2.. I was bored so I figured why not. I forgot about it for a while, until I got this in the mail:

They actually sent me a two dollar bill! I was expecting a check or paypal or something, but a two dollar bill is much more exciting, especially to get one from a random envelope in the mail! 🙂

Are you a top or a bottom?

I’m working on a slight update to the www.c99.org layout, but I can’t decide whether to put the navigations links above or below the header. Click the links below to preview the two layouts and cast your votes to help me decide 🙂

Thanks!

DCBlap.blend

This weekend I wrote a plugin for Blender to load the DCBlap map files. Here are some of the DCBlap maps rendered by Blender:

It’s still got a few bugs (the textures aren’t aligned properly) but not too bad for only a day of work and not having written a single line of python before. The next step is to write an exporter, then I’ll finally be able to work on DCBlap levels again without having to boot up Windows to use Hammer. I also wont have to deal with the bugs and quirks that the old map compiler had, so I’ll be able to make much more complex levels.

More death storms

Holy crap, the national weather service mentioned the development I live in!

* AT 1048 PM EDT… NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS IN EXCESS OF 60 MPH. THIS STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR TWIN RIVERS… OR ABOUT 11 MILES EAST OF TRENTON… AND MOVING EAST AT 30 MPH.

And they didn’t issue the warning until 10:51, which didn’t arrive in my inbox ’til 10:52. Thanks for telling me what I could already hear 4 minutes ago, NWS.

Edit: The storm was so distracting I forgot my point. ‘Twin Rivers’ is awfully specific for a NWS alert, why not mention the town that Twin Rivers is in? As much as TR likes to think otherwise, they’re still just a development inside a larger town 😛

Random Stats

Here are some interesting statistics from the DCSquares score database:

General Stats

  • Total users that have submitted a score: 373
  • Total games played: 50,097
  • Total squares collected: 1,042,625
  • Total time spent playing: 34 days (note: scores entered through the website do not record a time, so this is actually higher)
  • Average games played per user: 138
  • Average number of squares collected per game: 38
  • Average score per game: 28,235
  • Average combo per game: 45
  • Average game time: 58 seconds

Players by platform

  • Windows: 50%
  • Mac: 48%
  • Linux: 2%
  • Dreamcast: 0% (only 23 scores ever submitted for Dreamcast)

Hall of fame:

  • Highest score: DrunkenAryan scored 645,233 points
  • Highest combo: spam collected 333 squares in a row
  • Most squares: Harryfronman collected 620 squares
  • Longest time: jason survived for 16:47 minutes

Hall of shame:

  • Lowest score: csp scored 1,002 points (scores below 1,000 are rejected)
  • Shortest time: mozza survived for 2 seconds

12 players only collected 1 square but managed to score more than 1000 points.
99% of players use the in-game score client, only 1% of scores were entered through the web.

Over the (yellow) border

I started working on an editor in DreamZZT:

You can even enter the editor during the game by typing ‘edit’ in the debug console, quitting the editor returns you back to the game:

Forums migrated to Vanilla

I’ve replaced phpBB2 with Vanilla on forums.c99.org. Any users that had never posted on the forums and never submitted a score for DCSquares have been deleted, all other users have been migrated over. The user integration between Vanilla and the DCSquares site should be functioning the same (in fact, slightly better) as the phpBB2 version, so please let me know if anyone encounters any issues with the new forum system.