GJK

"If God would turn on Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering perhaps you would see that I'm actually kneeling beside the tank and not on it!"

"If God would turn on Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering perhaps you would see that I'm actually kneeling beside the tank and not on it!"

The link to the best screenshot is broken (the one in the middle on the overview page). It should be: http://www.battlefront.com/products/cmak/gallery/images/AK_Cruisers%2001.jpg But just found that you do have a page with all the screens. Very nice looking!!!

Folks, here's my first idea's for the player ratings. This is a straight steal (sorry, it's baseball season!) from ebay - sorta. Works something like this: you play somebody, tcp/ip - pbem, whichever. After your match, you both agree to post comments on each other (more on this later) so you decide to exchange passcodes (a feature that would be added to your profile). You can then each go to the details screen of your opponent and then log into the comment section using the passcode given. You can then give one of 3 ratings (this is from ebay), positive/neutral/negative and a comment. You can then post a counter-response to the rating/comment. Tallies of your positive/neutral/negatives are shown as a small icon link below your nickname so that others can read them. Now, on the agreement to exchange passcodes. I feel this is needed obviously because you don't want somebody that you never even matched against going in and posting stuff just because of spite. The problem I see though is that if you obviously know that somebody is going to post a negative comment about you - you got pissy at each other during the game for some reason, you're probably not going to give them your passcode, or, you might give them a wrong passcode just to get rid of them. So, I'm open for suggestions at this point, on any or all of this. Throw out other ideas as well, this was my initial thoughts on it.

Well, I'd like to personally hand out an award to BuckSAW_Billy for not being too ashamed to admit that he is a true "conscript"-newbie to the game! That's awesome, hopefully Billy can match up with somebody that will teach him the ropes a bit and they both have a good time. Membership is approaching 70 (there's 68 members as I write, some have marked themselves as deactivated so their number's don't count in the number of found records when you list all records). Thanks to all who have joined, I hope that it's working for you all and that it's bringing more opponents your way.

Cool, the site made somebody's sig file Some small changes that I added last night, which you all might of noticed already. Mainly to the navigation links at the bottom and also added a list menu of all the members that will take you directly to their details page. Note to self: I need to not show the member if they've hidden their profile! I'll take care of that right quick. Player comments/ratings due next, might not be until next week though. Enjoy, thanks!

A selfish *bump* and a note to say that the sort feature for "last modified/member since" has been fixed so that it first sorts the last modified records and then the rest of the records with no mod date by date joined (descending order).

Are you thinking maybe an "Articles" section or a "Tips & Hints" type section? Maybe have player written articles; ex: "The best way to QB for two rookies". Sort of a blog of articles or tips. That might be pretty neat. If anybody has written or wants to write such an article, I'd be more than happy to link it and put it up on the site. I'd have to be careful of opening up a pure blog for any member to write into of course. It could get filled up with lots of posts and rants, etc (ala THIS FORUM ) If I'm missing the general idea of what you're talking about, say so, but I think this is what you're meaning.

Make it a 3rd for Austin, TX! Soon to be Georgetown, TX though, 21.5 mi north of Austin. Might be time to get that Austin area gamer's club or get together going.

That's a really good idea, I like that. It could be as simple as selecting 1-5 (or more numbers) and then adding that to the search criteria, such as "I want only people that stick with the #4 philosophy, or I want people that stick with #2 or less". If somebody wants to put together a numbering list, maybe 10 ways to play, I can implement this idea.

[sNIP] .. I'll try knock out an short AAR for any battles that I play through the site .. never done one before so dont expect miracles Lou2000 </font>

Ok, added 'Joined-Modified' to the finder results page. Clicking on the column header will bring the most recently modified records to the top. This should be a quick way to see who's actively participating and who's not.

Great! I'm glad that it's connecting gamers together. On that status button, the way it is currently set is that if you're active, your profile will show in any of the searches where your information meets the search criteria. If you set yourself as deactivated, then you are simply hidden from the results that are displayed for searches, but your record is still intact. I think that I may have the comments section show on page of search results, as well as in the details view, so that if you are booked up you can just post a comment that will let everyone know what your schedule is like (for example). The problem with that is that if the comments that someone posts are long, then that just lengthens the whole table and makes for a lot of scrolling. I could add another field, a "quick notes" which can only hold say 20 characters, where you can quickly annotate your status. I want to do the AAR/opponent ratings thing too. No, not a ladder at all, but more like ebay's seller ratings. If you have a good match where the guy promptly emailed back turns, etc, then you might go in and give them some good marks, and vice versa if they were not the best of opponents bookkeeping wise. Lot's of ideas, tons of stuff that can and should be added. I'll be doing what I can as time permits, suggestions always welcomed!

I get paid by the hour...wait, that's counterproductive! Nah, I've been coding in this programming language for years. There's nothing that I haven't found that can be done using it. It being WebDNA from Smith Micro View my site, www.garykrockover.com for links to some projects and some other stuff that I've done with it (though it's quite outdated, need to add that to my project list)

Posted here for CMBO players that don't check out the CMBB forum. This opponent finder caters to both versions of the game: The Proving Grounds Info

Ok, just added a profile status button. If you edit your profile, you will see that you are now "active, ready to game!" (I've marked everybody to be active). You can then deactivate your profile, preventing it from showing in any of the results for opponent searches. I may need to add some in between status, such as active, but unavailable to play. So that your profile does show, but in a separate table from the other listings. I'm not sure that this is needed though. If your up for playing, but you already have several PBEM's going on, make a note about it in your comments section, or hide your profile for a bit. We'll see though.

Ok, I've added some of the change requests that were posted here: Clicking on the "Just show me all the records!" now breaks the listing up by game version, both CMBB and CMBO at the top and just CMBO at the bottom. Added a "member since" date (I modified everybody's record for you already) and a "last modified" date. If you log into your profile and save it, then the current date is appended to your record for modified_date. I figure that for now this may be an easy fix; if someone has been a member for several months, yet their record hasn't been modified for several months also, then they may not be a person you want to try to contact. I will post a notice saying something like "logging into your profile and then submitting the record (even without changes) will update your record modification date and will show others your interest in participating." Something cheesy like that... I'll work on the status listing next.

Actually, it's already in there, United Kingdom.

Ah, yeah, didn't even notice that. I forget where I copied that country list from but I would guess that it wasn't from a European country. Wait, here it is: Made in Mexico Just kidding to my neighbors to the south. I'll make that change right now. Actually, I'll need to leave England or it will break the records of those that selected that as their choice, so I will ADD UK. If folks want to go in and change from England to the UK, then by all means.

I don't know if one should be removed directly, I think unavailable is sufficient. Maybe you could remove someone if he is unavailable for more then x months. By the way, I wanted to notice that I dont't have the slightest idea how a website is programmed, so if it is too difficult or complicated just say so . About the "probe" email. Isn't it possible that the site just remembers when the player last visited ? A cookie maybe ? But before I ask even more, I should tell you, great site !! </font>

Excellent suggestions. I'll work on the Open/Closed feature tonight if I have a chance. I do like the idea of setting yourself "unavailable" in the case that you are unable to play a match and don't wish to be disturbed. I'll have to think on the auto-closing. Probably something in the form of a "probe" email that if goes unanswered the person is set to be unavailable. If unanswered a second (or third?) time, then they are removed. The CMBO vs CMBB (only) listing can be made a bit more obvious, as the feature is there. Might be better to even break it down into two tables, one for CMBB or both players and the other for CMBO only players. I'll think on that one as well. One feature that I did just add is the emailing of an opponent, it now uses a form that will look up the correct email address from the database. This is to prevent spambots from harvesting the email addresses. Currently, the "from" of the email will be my webhost because of his spam filters. I've emailed him and asked to add my domain to the list of acceptable domains that can send email from forms. The message body does say "DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE" and does include the email address of the sender. Keep the suggestions coming, this is fun!

Thanks Lou, it was actually your post on the "What this community needs" thread that made me realize that I already had that built. It was the mod hosting that forced me to pull the plug on the site in the first place, but no reason to not offer the opponent finder if some people will find it helpful. The original goal of the site was a place to offer scenario designers a place to upload their scenarios that are still in "beta" testing mode. A place to find playtesters and to receive feedback on the scenario before finalization and a move to the Scenario Depot. That is still a work in progress and may or may not come to fruition, I'll have to see as time allows. Thanks for the comments!

Do you mean how long ago did they sign up/are they still actively playing -or- do you mean how long have they been playing the game/how good are they? If the later, you can rate yourself and then search for other players based on how they've rated themselves. Not perfect, but it should give you an idea of how good an opponenet is before your match. If it's how long ago did they sign up, I can add a datestamp for date of membership. Eventually, I want to add player comments to this, or an AAR section or something that would be like a blog of notes that you can read about each person; how well they played, were they quick to send turns back, etc.

No problem. The advantage of it will be it's sorting features. You can find opponents by game (CMBB or CMBO or both), by type (PBEM or TCP/IP or both) by time zone, by type of battle and by the experience level of the opponent. Edited to add: Also player profiles are sortable by turns per week able to play (for PBEM), for historical only vs non-historical scenarios, by hosts or guests only (TCP/IP), by max turns per game & by nationality prefered (Axis or Allies). The BFC forum is great if you're online and itching to get into a game right at that moment, no preferences. Hopefully someone else is online also and see's your post to join your game. The Proving Grounds will hopefully give you a list of people that you can contact to that you can arrange games that match what the both of you want to play at a later time. [ March 29, 2003, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: GJK ]

Hi all, Upon reading the threads about finding opponents, or the problems with doing so without having to join a ladder made me want to help out since I'm in a position to be able to do so. Thus, I've reuploaded the old Proving Grounds, without the mods, that offers an opponent finder for both CMBB and CMBO, either TCP/IP or PBEM or both. The code is a bit dusty, so there may be some bugs in it. If so, or if anyone has any suggestions, send over an email. The Proving Ground