MAP Updates / DWP News [Updated 3/10]

With the one month since release mark rapidly approaching, I would now like to take a step back to review how the first month went, and to show off some new features that were added in.

All in all, it was a decent start for my first pack, I got a few sales and while there were some hiccups with the download system and the pack having a few linker errors, a majority of the issues have now been resolved, with some updates coming out soon to (hopefully) eliminate the remaining ones.

The first thing was more pre-purchase information for the pack in the form of pictures and a demo of the pack features. I have shown a few screenshots in the initial release blog (found here), if you' like some certain features highlighted, just drop a line here, and I'll share some screenshots with you.

Demo: PGD Survival (My First Game, All systems built using pack features, Hey, I might as well show off multiple things of mine at once, right?)

And now for the updates.
Earlier today, I was playing around with the projectManager and the module system included with it, and after a few headaches and lots of disk space used, deleted, and reused, I have now set up this pack to function directly out of the project manager, so no more tricky engine (C++) setups, just a few lines of code to modify, running the project manager, and all set.

The next tricky aspect was with the key generation steps being a little confusing, I have modified the code that does it to directly output the two php functions for you to simply copy and paste now, bye bye problems there ;)

I have also addressed a few more glitches inside the system, I would once again like to thank everyone for being patient with me. I am a one man team, but I have been able to iron out these issues at a fairly rapid pace.

Lastly, it was suggested to me that I add some more tutorials and systems, mainly using features that indie game developers looking to clone common systems would want, so launching next week will be update 1.4 which includes these new tutorials (complete with code samples):

* Setting up a stats recording system
* Creating customizable loadouts
* Creating a Pre-Game Lobby
* Creating a Kill-Feed

As you can see, I'm moving this pack away from all C++ and more into some in-game stuff now to give you a start on coding up some gameplay features, this was a big one that people wanted, and I would definitely love to deliver.

Now, onto pack #2, the Dynamic Weather Pack, and unfortunately, me being a meteorologist and loving the use of acronyms, thanking NOAA (National Organization for the Advancement of Acronyms) I am now calling the DWP.

I've made some progress to creating my new HazardPrecipitation class. As expected, the challenge of migrating the precipitation to function on the server side is what is causing the most headaches, but I'm starting to get closer with the progress of it.

I also have dug up my old Rankine Vortex field (for pure cyclostrophic rotation), for you non-science people out there, this is basically the "ideal" tornado, where all flow around it is balanced. Since the tornado itself modifies the wind field around it, why not start with the WindEmitter? Well, I played around with the different fields on the wind emitter and am starting to have a great deal of respect for that class even more.

Basically, once I get these mathematical formulations (for the Rankine Vortex) to function within the WindEmitter, I will be one step closer to completing this portion of the class.

All in all, It's been a great past month for me, and I hope that what comes up next month only furthers my current interest in developing cool packs!

Blog Update: March, 10, 2012
Not going to lie here, I kind of do want to boost sales a little bit, and it helps alot to have the input of the community in regards to the Multiplayer Assembly Package.

Even if you don't own the pack yet, or don't plan on getting it, I'd like you to visit The MAP Forum and post your input regarding the pack.

As a bonus incentive to buy the pack, I will be including the full source code to my PGD Survival game in the next pack, to provide a working sample of how to deploy the pack to make a stats system, a rank/progression system, and much more!