Hi

[ Updated QuestNet Server test release - new URL in my post below ]

This implements the much-requested "save game" feature. It saves everything the usual single-player Quest QSG format saves, but it doesn't save the current rooms of any of the players. Why? Because players are referenced by their user ID, but when players come to reconnect, they will be allocated a different ID.

This may or may not be important - if the game is a free-for-all then players can re-join back at the normal start point, but any changes to the world before the game was saved will still be present.

If you're using logins, you may or may not want players to go back to where they were when the game was saved. This should be easy enough to do with some ASL. Is there anything I can do to make this easier? For example I can see that having some code block which can run just before the game is saved would be useful?

My problem at the moment is there are so many ways games could be made for QuestNet Server, and I don't want to make any particular type too difficult for game authors to implement. But because there aren't any games available yet, I have no idea either of what particular types of games will be most popular.

So, please download this update and have a play with it. Let me know if you encounter any problems, and also let me know if there are any features I can add to make the save game feature more useful.

As always, people who give me helpful feedback and bug reports will receive a discounted or free copy of one of the QuestNet Server editions when it is finally released (only been three and half years in the making so far.... )

Coolies!!!

I'll download and install on my new laptop when I get it tomorrow (HORAAH!!!!!).... That'll speed up my programming stuff.

I've now uploaded the QuestNet Server 3.5 Release Candidate to http://www.axeuk.com/quest/qnet35rc.zip

This adds:

        - Added save game facility
                - "beforesave" tag in "define game" block specifies any script
                  to tun before saving. For example this might store the
                  players' current locations.
                - "onload" tag specifies script to run after loading - this
                  might restore the players' locations.
        - Added timed shutdowns
        - You can now minimise the window to the system tray

This is the release candidate which means I don't plan to make too many changes to the final version, apart from bug fixes of course.

QuestNet Server will be available initially in three editions:

QuestNet Server Lite will come with the main Quest install, and will be released with Quest 3.51 within the next couple of weeks. This edition of QuestNet Server will be like the beta - free, and supporting up to 3 users. This version will be licenced for non-commercial use only.

QuestNet Server Home will support up to 15 users, licenced for commerical use and will cost $39.95.

QuestNet Server Pro will support up to 100 users, licenced for commercial use and will cost $99.95.


I will be giving away free copies of the "Home" and "Pro" editions to good beta testers - and now is the most important time for testing! So please download and try to break the current Release Candidate version - email bug reports to me at alex@axeuk.com . I really appreciate your help, and you could receive almost $100 of software for free!

hmmmm - I've got a suspicion about that "onload" tag there Alex.... Surely wouldn't we just use the player_start script (or whatever it's called) to put the player's in their positions...

The load script would mean the players would all need to be logged in before loading the save-game surely...

"player startscript" will run every time the game is started, whether from the saved QSG, or from the beginning from an ASL or CAS. You may well have code that you only want to run when loading from a QSG. I suppose checking $loadmethod$ would work for that as well though. But play with it and see what happens - then let me know! There are a million ways of setting things up.

I've got 2 or 3 days free coming up so I can try and break it then. I'll get back to you.