Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

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Twig
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Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by Twig » Wed Oct 12, 2016 04:47 UTC

Would absolutely love to get back into this game and i'm sad to see its not still up - amazing that you have managed to keep the game alive for so long to any degree.

I was never very good but damn you Pold is all I have to say other than a big thank you to the team who were involved in bringing this great game to me in my childhood which undoubtedly influenced me to who I am today.

Brilliant game and I applaud everything you've done over the years.

I wish you all the best with your health and all future endeavours and I sincerely hope this game lives once more someday!

Best wishes, Twig.

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TheMightyDude
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by TheMightyDude » Thu Oct 13, 2016 23:22 UTC

Yeah, sorry about that.

I have been having broadband connection issues so I haven't been about.
The broadband issues should be resolved tomorrow when our Ultrafast Fibre Broadband is installed and goes live, so I should be online more often.

I did try and get the live game back up and running, but sadly its broken when starting from a fresh database.
I seemed to resolve parts of it by hand but too many errors, notices and warnings was popping up all over the place.

Most of the error was due to I had coded the live games that I run on here to work better with the versions of PHP and MySQL that I used to run on the old server.
I am still thinking of doing a complete recode from scratch and will look like it was before but with better coding, I can also say it will still be open source, so it will be put on sourceforge or maybe GitHub, not decided on that yet.

This recode will take a while to do due to just me doing it and my ill health, I am also basing the code to work on the following:
Apache: 2.4.7
MySQL: 5.5.52
PHP: 5.5.9

If there are issues with newer versions of A, M, P I will have to look into it.

I am hoping to do it in stages, starting with a SSL Login which will log you into a sand box screen, from there I will start to add features.

I will post more information when I get some time.
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thekabal
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by thekabal » Sun Oct 16, 2016 23:55 UTC

TheMightyDude wrote: Apache: 2.4.7
MySQL: 5.5.52
PHP: 5.5.9

If there are issues with newer versions of A, M, P I will have to look into it.
Apache shouldn't be an issue. PHP may be a little more difficult, as full support for 5.* series ends in December of this year: https://secure.php.net/supported-versions.php

Many distributions will of course still support PHP after that with security fixes (PHP itself will continue security patches for two more years), so you probably still have the ability to choose 5.* for a while if you don't mind older distributions. Ubuntu and Fedora are both on 7+ now, but that should be an easy transition should you choose to have it able to run on 7 also.

MySQL on the other hand, has some definite fun in store for you. It handles end-of-life by distribution/OS, but the general statement as of now ( https://www.mysql.com/support/supported ... abase.html ) is that 5.5 is falling out of support in most recent non-enterprise distributions. 5.6 might be a better bet, but MySQL just released a 8.0 milestone: http://mysqlserverteam.com/the-mysql-8- ... available/ , and while it doesn't eliminate MyISAM, it makes it very, very difficult to use. If you are mindful of that feature/issue, you should otherwise be OK to support a newer version if needed.

I'm focused on getting TKI's DB migration (from Adodb -> PDO) completed, but shortly after, I'll be rewriting the SQL entirely to run on PostgreSQL instead. MySQL, and even MariaDB (a sort-of-fork of mysql) have made some recent choices about licensing and business models that should give most open source developers at least pause. I'll likely leave the option in TKI to run it on mariadb, but I'm unlikely to support it once I get a working postgresql version going.

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TheMightyDude
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by TheMightyDude » Mon Oct 17, 2016 04:16 UTC

Hey :)

I just thought I would say to everyone that I do plan to start working on the recoding, I know a lot of you have emailed me over the last year asking is this is really going to happen, a lot of you already know my health history etc so I won't go into detail about that.

A brief status about my health issues...
Health wise I am a lot better than I was several years ago, yes I have been ill for that long, I was just good at hiding the fact that I was getting worse, some people got the blunt end of it when I would just loose it and snap over something stupid, I know thekabal and I had a few blows over coding due to me just loosing it, so sorry about that btw.

I am not at the stage where I use to be when I would spend 60% to maybe 80% of my free time with BNT related stuff, but at least I am at a point where I feel ok looking at code, where as a few years ago I was in a bad place in life where I couldn't be bothered to do anything.


Right now that's out of the way...

I agree totally with you about the PHP version, sadly that's all I can install without doing a disto upgrade which "might" break something, I say it might due to a lot of stuff that we was running before that was very old is now using a more up to date version, grated it did break at first but ended up getting fixed and is now working better than before.

As you already know SSL is already setup, so that's something I need to think about when doing the recode, so it can handle that as well as Non SSL connections.
Or do I just allow for SSL, this will allow for people that already have SSL and people that know how to set it all up, which "should" reduce support requests a little.

MySQL, version 8.0 WOW, I wasn't aware of that :)

Mind you I haven't really been on my PC much compared to how I use to.

Just installed Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS on my VM Box which is exactly the same for 16.10 which both have the following PHP and MySQL Versions:
PHP 7.0.8-0ubuntu0.16.04.3 (cli) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.0.8-0ubuntu0.16.04.3, Copyright (c) 1999-2016, by Zend Technologies

MySQL Server version: 5.7.15-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 (Ubuntu)
Sadly ours is only running 14.04 LTS (saves my brother - owner of server keep fixing stuff when they break) and also down to other stuff that cannot break, so we are getting a place for BNT for free, hence the no ad banners.

I do have root access to the server but that's if it boots up, my brother has full remote access so he can see if it doesn't boot up.

So where we are running 14.04 LTS we are limited to using PHP and MySQL versions:
PHP 5.5.9-1ubuntu4.20 (cli) (built: Oct 3 2016 13:00:37)
Copyright (c) 1997-2014 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2014 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.0.3, Copyright (c) 1999-2014, by Zend Technologies

MySQL Server version: 5.5.52-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)
I would upgrade it myself, but like I said I don't have full remote access just in case I break it.

So, what I was thinking was I will code it to work on the version we are currently running and I used that version as an ideal version.

Option 1:
I will try and have it support 5.x up to 7.x using checks, granted the files will increase in size, but they "should" already at that point be all split up into their own classes etc.

Option 2:
Still cater for versions 5.0 (minimal), 5.5 (ideal) and 7.x (maximum) and have 3 lots of code to work with those versions.

As for Adodb, I am not even thinking about that, I am aiming to use PDO from the start.
At the time Adodb was good and worked very well for BNT, sadly the maintainer just seems to of lost interest in keeping it up to date with PHP and MySQL, mind you I cannot talk, I am the same with BNT LOL.
But Adodb was the main factor BNT use to break a lot, well that and when we broke it :P, look at all those hacks I had to do to even get it to work as we wanted to do with schemas etc, very ugly.

At least with PDO all we have to do is mostly just change the connection information and that "should" be it.
Which I think is great :)

Well TBH, I haven't really played with PHP and MySQL since the last time we was both splitting stuff up, so I am assuming PHP and MySQL hasn't change that much, I know its going to be a little learning curve getting back into using them.

As for the MySQL Engine types, I will be taking my time choosing engine types for the tables, due to some tables might work better with one engine where as others might work better as another.
So I will need to look into that as well.

So what I "will" try and do is go day by day and if I am feeling up to doing some coding I will do some coding, at least I am actually thinking about it at this stage :) so this "might" take a while.
I will also "try" and keep it the same as BNT Classic in the way it looks, so that should please most of the players.
TBH, I am not really sure how many users we have left, I might spend many months or even a year or two to end up having no players playing the game.

So, where all my development books say make a game that you like playing, I did at one point like to play BNT, but to me there was so much missing from the game.

So what I am thinking of doing is just get the game to a point where users can login into a sandbox and I will think about what to add from there, I know I am thinking to have loads more trading resources, a tech tree for character levelling and also R&D etc.

I have also been thinking about the universe in the game and the way it is all linked up, so that "might" change as well to more of a cluster of galaxies where we "should" be able to add more if we need to.

I will leave those ideas there due to I don't really want to promise too much and not be able to add them.

Well now to why I have been away on and off for the last few weeks, we have been having broadband connections issues for the last few years and have been in constant battle with our service provider for the last nearly 5 years concerning fibre, and finally our fibre connection is all up and running, so we now have a broadband connection of 300Mbps down and 30Mbps up, so that allows me to do more stuff my end.

So, as I am starting to get better week by week, I am "thinking" of giving updates on the progress of development in the forms of YouTube Videos, this is still just an idea at this point so this part might not happen.

Well that's me rambling done for now :)

Why is it I start to do a simple short reply and end up with a long reply LOL.
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TheMightyDude
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by TheMightyDude » Fri Oct 21, 2016 18:45 UTC

thekabal wrote: Apache shouldn't be an issue. PHP may be a little more difficult, as full support for 5.* series ends in December of this year: https://secure.php.net/supported-versions.php

Many distributions will of course still support PHP after that with security fixes (PHP itself will continue security patches for two more years), so you probably still have the ability to choose 5.* for a while if you don't mind older distributions. Ubuntu and Fedora are both on 7+ now, but that should be an easy transition should you choose to have it able to run on 7 also.
Well I just tried to upgrade to PHP 7.0 and also 7.1 had some issues where Apache decided to drop some virtual hosts.

My brother and I managed to get the virtual hosts back up to find that the version of phpBB I have running here doesn't support PHP 7.x, so I thought I would downloaded the very latest core version of phpBB, you would think it would be compatible with PHP 7.x wouldn't you, but noooooo it also doesn't support PHP 7.0 and up.

So at that point I am pissed off, so I have now reverted back to 5.5 and have to go through the long process installing all the php libraries :(
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MrBrennus
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by MrBrennus » Tue Nov 01, 2016 09:54 UTC

I think we played about the same time. The name Twig stands out in my memory.

I was never very good and I recall you being on the leaderboard at the time.

Do I remember correctly?

thekabal
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by thekabal » Mon Nov 07, 2016 23:34 UTC

TheMightyDude wrote: My brother and I managed to get the virtual hosts back up to find that the version of phpBB I have running here doesn't support PHP 7.x, so I thought I would downloaded the very latest core version of phpBB, you would think it would be compatible with PHP 7.x wouldn't you, but noooooo it also doesn't support PHP 7.0 and up.
It looks like several other folks had similar issues, and one found a fix: http://forum.dion-designs.com/t9150/mak ... th-php-70/

But as he implies, PHPBB is trying to "encourage" everyone to migrate to phpbb-3.2, which is not a compatible upgrade path from earlier phpbb versions. The latest I can find is the Alpha release: https://wiki.phpbb.com/Release_Highlights/3.2.0-a1 which has the AWESOME comment:
PHP7 compatibility - The alpha version is almost 100% compatible with PHP7
Almost! Woo! Sigh. Seriously? Seriously.

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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by TheMightyDude » Tue Nov 08, 2016 01:03 UTC

thekabal wrote:
TheMightyDude wrote: My brother and I managed to get the virtual hosts back up to find that the version of phpBB I have running here doesn't support PHP 7.x, so I thought I would downloaded the very latest core version of phpBB, you would think it would be compatible with PHP 7.x wouldn't you, but noooooo it also doesn't support PHP 7.0 and up.
It looks like several other folks had similar issues, and one found a fix: http://forum.dion-designs.com/t9150/mak ... th-php-70/

But as he implies, PHPBB is trying to "encourage" everyone to migrate to phpbb-3.2, which is not a compatible upgrade path from earlier phpbb versions. The latest I can find is the Alpha release: https://wiki.phpbb.com/Release_Highlights/3.2.0-a1 which has the AWESOME comment:
PHP7 compatibility - The alpha version is almost 100% compatible with PHP7
Almost! Woo! Sigh. Seriously? Seriously.
Yeah, I read that, but I am not willing at this point of time installing an ALPHA version of phpBB, but once that becomes release it will probably be on my 1st thing to install.

The only issue is there is no space theme available apart from the one I have on here, sadly that only supports up to the version I am running.

But I learnt that it wasn't that hard to get PHP7 installed on here and that the owner of this server was ok in getting PHP7 on here, so that one good thing.
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Rincewind
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Re: Used to play this game a lot when I was really young

Post by Rincewind » Tue Nov 08, 2016 04:50 UTC

To OP,

I played this a lot when I was in my teens, too... It was actually along with OGame the only other game that could make me get up at 3AM just to check my defenses because I knew the opposing alliances operate at that time. I was living in Europe then, and I'm in Australia now. Back then most people were from Europe, but quite a few from the US as well.

I was part of the 'Gamers Gateway' community, which had a fairly well established forum and a community as a whole, lots of people played there, different ages, a lot of girls, too :D

Too bad the forum is dead now, I was going to go there and try and get some of the old gang into 'preparation state' and play the next big blacknova.net game. Really not sure where I could reach those guys and gals now... But those games back in 2002-2005 were always pretty damn big, always over 100 people. Admins were really good and fair, and exploiters were always banned.

I learned a lot from a lot of the great players of that time, but I learned most from 'Jute' and 'Homeslice'. Homeslice was able to win games purely by the most efficient trading and building, guy didn't have to fight, and when not dealt with in the earlier stages, simply grew too big to take out later.

Others I remember quite well: radas, Sonic, pold, Gazza, AllWrighty, Scarface, korn, Victoria, Raistlin, nightcralwer (always mispelled intentionally), cmrdr1, nemesis01... and I probably missed many.

Those were such good times. I feel that despite the type of game this is (slow-paced web based trading game with simple graphics, weird gameplay) it still excels at team-play aspect when it comes to taking down a big bank.

I'll stop rambling now, this probably doesn't even fit here lol. Sorry I hijacked your thread OP.

Just wanted to share my experience and sentiment for this game.

Just look at this...

https://web.archive.org/web/20040214061 ... anking.php

Also, this:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080509155 ... charts.php

Too bad my 2003 game where I won is not recorded *cry*

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