» Home / News
» The Forums
» Downloads
» Vista Fixes
|
 |
 Dustmite churns onwards 
August 31, 2010 |
So progress is slowly made,
I couldn't find my old Map stuff which was a bit frustrating but I've spent the evening re-writing it, the map is stored as xml and loaded at runtime into Objects which are used in turn to...
Draw our first patch of world (click through to the post to see the full image attached if you are viewing from the front-page). This is just client side at the moment and pretty primitive, my first dabbling in 'drawing' anything and it all seems to work which is nice.
The plan is to now port the Map Init server side and send the client the bare minimum when it needs it, shouldn't be too difficult (gulp). Progress is progress, happy days ^.^
Fox
|
|
3 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Website Downtime
August 31, 2010 |
Hey all,
Sorry for the short downtime over the weekend, was waiting for payday so I could renew the Domain. All is well again :3
I'd put up some kind of Donation initiative so you guys could help keep things online in the future but I'm not really sure what I could offer in return. Perhaps some webspace or something? Let me know what you'd like to see from a donation and we'll see what we can do for you.
Liam
|
|
7 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Moderators Needed
August 22, 2010 |
Well chaps,
The title pretty much says it all ^^
Despite our complete lack of commitment people seem to still come here and this ship needs moderating so if you would like to be considered for a Moderator position please reply to this post :3
Also, if you think you have what it takes to push our website / forums into the year 2010 and would like to help - let us know. We aren't going anywhere in a hurry!
Liam
|
|
15 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Winter Sun
July 28, 2010 |
Hi all,
With Dustmite a little stalled and this place going nowhere in a hurry, you might ask what I'm going to be doing next? Well, this is what I'd say.
Winter Sun is a 2D Java MMORPG project aimed at mobile devices. It will be distributed via the Android Market for a nominal charge (around £1 or so) and will encapsulate many of the things we see in Mirage Realms today.
Watch a video of the Beta
The mobile market is gaining ground and we are perfectly positioned to get a foothold in the 2D RPG world on this platform. While development is still in the early stages, enjoy some badly taken images of where we are right now :3
If you are interested in the project, we are actively seeking to commission a pixel artist to renew our tilesheet - please get in touch. It is currently available for download on the Android Market for free and you can apply for a Beta Testing pass there, search WinterSun!
Liam
Update: Registered a domain and put a pretty placeholder image up so google can start finding it. www.wintersun-online.com.
|
|
24 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Incoming Changes
July 7, 2010 |
Hi all,
As it stands we are currently supporting three different projects here:
1. The Mirage Realms VB6 Engine (Jacob's baby)
2. The Mirage Realms Game (Egon's baby)
3. Project Dustmite (My baby)
I fear as the site is being pulled in three different directions the community has suffered as a result. The site is really quite general, anyone outside of our little circle at first glance wouldn't know what the moose was going on. That is why I am going to split Mirage-Realms.com into two sites (the game and the Engine - the game should stand on its own two feet), and purchase another domain for Project Dustmite (even if it hasn't been named yet).
I'm not sure when you will see these changes come into affect, but if there is something you would like to see come out of this please let me know. I am also going to start offering hosted website services to games running and promoting the Mirage Realms engine, you'll get a yourgame.mirage-realms.com webspace as well as a yourgamename @ mirage-realms.com email forwarder. As part of the package forums and a nice website template and structure will be included, obviously I can't make everyone an individual template so I'll try and make it quite generic and easily customisable with .psd files.
That's all for now!
Liam
|
|
10 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Dustmite and where we stand
June 25, 2010 |
Morning all,
My rents' stepped in at the last minute and gave me a roof for the time being (woo), and now things are settling a bit I'm at a loss with what to do in my spare time... back to Dustmite I guess!
A work colleague of mine's 8800GTX melted my computer just before recent events unfolded so I've been a bit screwed as far as getting online or being productive outside of work hours goes, however I'm hopefully building a new PC out of donated bits so I'll be able to get up and running by next week.
As I see it the next stage in Dustmite's development is back-end storage (the database), and a layer of persistence that enables me to manage Objects nicely when it comes to reading / writing back. My current thought is to use MySQL as its what I (sort of) know and what I've worked with for the last few years, firstly in Support and now as a Developer.
Anyone have any other ideas? Anything you'd like to see as far as storage and ease of use when persisting Objects to and from the Database?
I think I'm going to read a bit into Hibernate as this seems to be the industry API of choice these days, I've got a feeling this'll be something I just get on with but its healthy to hear what you guys think.
Any questions, ideas, whatever, fire away :3
Liam
|
|
10 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Lifes little problems...
June 14, 2010 |
Sigh,
If any of you are annoyed or worried about anything at the mo' I challenge you to top this (lol). Biggest thing that's ever gone down in my life happened this week, properly epic, I'm guessing things won't settle for months and even then... urgh.
Basically, I've had financial difficulties as you know, aspirations to join the forces and all that jazz, relationship problems have been drifting back and forth from the past to come and kick my ass and throughout this I met a lad where I work who had up until very recently become my best friend. Best mate I've had in a very long time.
Anyway, he lived with his lass and his mum in a town a way from mine and offered me a cheap room to rent and lots of hospitality to boot. Not believing my luck I took it, and through it met loads of ace people, got very drunk a lot, and really enjoyed myself. This is in the past tense, because shit went down.
I've always got on well with both him and his lass and unfortunately they've been going through problems, I've chatted to both of them about it and where I could tried to steer them in the right direction. Unfortunately when it came down to it, they made the decision to split up, and holy crap did they split up fast... I think it was maybe 2 days until she was moved out, shock and awe tactics I guess - crazy stuff.
Now this in itself should be a huge problem, my best mate is now in pieces and I live in the same house so surely I should be consoling him? Well, sort of, I've had shit going down elsewhere but that seems somewhat irrelevant in context so I keep it to myself and try and do what mates do and cheer him up.. I'm pretty rubbish at it lol.
Now I guess here's the real, super huge, massive epic problem that's pretty much blew my life into little pieces. You see, for some fucked up reason I've developed feelings of my own for his lass over time but I'm fine with that, I can keep them squished, they'll go away, its not important, that shit just doesn't happen and can't happen, so I won't let it.
Nothing major, she's the first lass I've really had proper feelings for like this in years but its unimportant - my loyalty to my best mate cancels that out 10000x, and it did, and everything was fine. Then I realised I was going to hang out with her for a coffee and such when I was hanging out with him, meeting up with her with another friend of ours just to chill - I guessed this was fine and normal since I was good friends with both of them so that's alright, everythings in control, nothing to worry about right?
wrong.
Shit basically hit the fan out of nowhere less than a week after they split, call it a momentary lapse of reason, call it what you want, but it effectively was the quickest and easiest way anyone could ever conceive of fucking my life sideways. I can't remember what day it was now, two nights on the street and sitting in bed staring into space for 2 or is it 3 days have sorta fucked with my time perception a little...
I was out on the town with her and some randoms I've not met before going to a live acoustic night at a pub (which really interests me since I love acoustic guitar and watching people play it well just blows my mind) and all was well, sat down and started watching people play. Couple of beers... couple more.. some more beers... I was a bit... 'tipsy' (hmm...), and I guess so was she, I went up and played my fave song called Wish you Were here by pink Floyd (you may know it) and to my surprise got some claps and such, never been so nervous in my life but meh, went and sat back down, had a drink, turned her and out of nowhere we kissed.
Not a second later was I sitting facing forwards thinking 'oh shit' when out of nowhere he comes bursting into the pub shouting 'WHAT THE FUCK' at the top of his lungs, shaking with rage. At this point you can probably imagine things weren't exactly about to go right for me.
Anyway since I'm using this post selfishly as a way of telling you guys what happened since I need to tell SOMEONE unbiased as pretty much every friend I had now wants to kick my face in, I'll try and wrap this up quickly.
As you probably have guessed he pushed me about a bit, I got booted from his place and spent a lovely few days on the street (I left my wallet inside and he took my key so I was pretty much fucked), got some lovely messages from work colleagues on my phone telling me I'm the biggest tosser that's ever lived, managed to get in with her key and get some of my things, get a bus back to my old flat, get told by my old landlord I had to leave in a few days, get told his mum has rang her mum and told her I'm untrustworthy and not worth anyones time (which is a bit of salt in the wound really... didn't see that coming), realise I have very little money and still owe some people money, lose all of my friends I've made since I've met him as obviously he now thinks I had some massive plan to break them up or whatever and won't listen to a word I say so he'll seek solace from his friends who don't really know me and collectively I'm sure the hate will just brew and argh.
What a massive mess, a huge mess, a googol of a mess, I'm not sure karma could of annihilated my life to within an inch of itself with more precision if it tried. So, to summarise, lost all my friends (including the lass), have nowhere to live as of wednesday, no money, got work in 9 hours and everyone there as probably already heard something from someone and also thinks I'm the biggest backstabbing asshole ever to exist, and nowhere really to turn.
Not sure I want to turn anywhere, don't know what I want to do, had a horrible butterfly feeling and complete lack of motivation to sorta.. think or analyze what's happened since it did. Literally just lay in bed for 3 days just mindblown, staring into space, couldn't like.. process what's happening. Just now having to deal with stuff as I guess I have work tomorrow and I guess I need to try and find somewhere to live... its just so horrible beyond anything that's happened to me before.
Don't really know why I'm writing this, brought up some horrible feelings I've pushed away for a few days now... I guess it made me feel better to write it? Meh.
I guess the moral of the story is just to stay single and not let anyone into your life or this shit happens. I'm sure I'll find the answer at the bottom of a bottle... or a can... or something.. lol.
Fuck.
Thanks for reading if you did, I guess I'm just mindblown by the scale of things. Time to build 300ft walls around my character retract into a corner somewhere. The only thing that's hurting me, the thing that's clawing its way inside me, is that he got hurt so bad from this. Wrong place, wrong time, whatever, his perspective and perception of things is just so... horrible, someone who has done so much for me - thinks I'd do that to them, is just really, well and in the truest sense of the word, horrible. This entire thing is nasty beyond comprehension and I'm sorta floating off to the side looking at whats happening and falling to pieces.
For the first time ever, i truly feel lost.
Liam
|
|
20 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Dustmite Source Code Release
May 18, 2010 |
Hiho,
Sitting at work waiting for data imports to complete it occurs to me I haven't released the Dustmite Source yet. Well, time to fix that. A few things have been sorted out Code-Wise prior to this release that should make it easier to fathom. The client now has colours, and a nice way of dealing with them dynamically in the packets.
A couple of things that may help you figure out how this works:
- There are two main types of Messages, chatMessages, and notifications.
- I have used the MVC principle throughout, so the controller is the hub of the application.
- I didn't get around to writing the nice packet spam handling (may do this for you).
- Ignore comments referring to a Database - that was phase 2 ^_^;
- Launch the Client from ClientMain, and the Server from ServerMain.
The Server connection handling is the only piece of logic I can forsee people struggling with so here is a quick overview, the ConnectionHandler recieves a connection and checks:
1. That it has not connected in the last 5 seconds
2. That it is not already connected
If it has connected in the last 5 seconds it is simply dropped as we don't want DOS attacks wasting more bandwith than they need too, if they are already connected but haven't connected in the last 5 seconds they are politely disconnected with a reason.
If a connection is accepted a new ClientConnection is spawned off in a new Thread, and a reference is kept to this connection in a Vector at ConnectionHandler level. This clientConnection is effectively the client, so it spawns off its own input and output streams, and its own incoming and outgoing packet handling objects. This is nice as if this client decides to send a message (and need to send an outgoing packet to everyone), it is this clients thread that deals with it, no stress is put on anyone elses IO (though of course they are all using the main ServerSocket).
Anyway it is pretty well commented so I'm sure you will get the picture fairly swiftly. The 'user' System is a temporary bodge (hence String comparisons at client level on the usernames) that was to be replaced with a back-end database and User objects at a later date (I'm sure someone will sort that out), the colour System is fairly basic and uses a hashtable to match int constants to some SimpleAttributeSets that can be applied to Strings going into the main Console's Document.
I'm rambling. Here is the source.
Of course, I'll be offering full Support on the forums as this is a project I'd like to see you guys push - I've done the initial painful bit, you have your networking framework - go forth and multiply!
All the best,
Liam
|
|
1 Comment - Leave a Comment |
The final 'cut'
May 7, 2010 |
Morning one and all,
It is with sadness that I inform you progress on project Dustmite has halted forever, and my involvement in the Mirage Project is ending very soon indeed. Some things have happened in the last few days that have re-adjusted my outlook on well... everything, and subsequently I have quit my job and applied for the army, enlisting can take quite a while so how I'm going to sustain myself in the interim is unknown... sitting in an empty house I get evicted from in 6 days writing this, it crosses my mind I may not of planned things as well as I could of - alas the affect women have on us.
I am leaving Mirage Realms to Jacob, Egon and Consty. You three now own 33.3% of this project so take care of it, even if I have let it slide over the years. Quite funny really, there is a high likelyhood my parents will find out what I'm doing by reading this post - when you read this flamps, do me a favor and don't ring me going nuts as I have a place to stay for the next 3 months and a part time job lined up so chill.
I'll release the Dustmite Source when I get around to it, so much to take care of now its unreal. Time for another Vodka Coke i suspect, take care everyone and I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did!
All the best,
Liam Stewart
aka'd over the years as "Coke" and "Fox", I'd like you guys to know me by my real name.
|
|
55 Comments - Leave a Comment |
Dustmite Chat Release v0.2!
April 24, 2010 |
Good morning!
After a real server hammering from various people, bugs, holes in security, connection flooding, threading issues.... and finally a real corker from Jacob, I have re-written the Server connection handling this afternoon.
I am now fairly confident the Networking Code is solid and the Server cannot be killed (aside from perhaps a DDOS attack on my laptop), but alas I exist to be proven wrong so here you go - Dustmite v0.2!
Some noteable changes:
- No more than one connection will be accepted from a given IP address.
- New connections cannot be made within 5 seconds of the last attempt
- Fixed some client bugs with the Online list
- Fixed handshake packet vulnerability
- Added 3 new layers of Security to the Server involving access to commands
- Complete re-write of Connection handling
- Fixed several threading issues
- Added OS-Specific look and feel to the Client & Server
- Added "always on top" File Menu to the Client & Server
- The Server now has a Chat Log so I can see what you have been up to ^_^
- Tons of re-structuring Server Side...
Please find the download attached to this post in the Forums, as ever - please break it, and let me know how you did it!
Best Regards,
Liam
Edit: Update to v0.3 - Testing out some visual goodies ^_^;
Edit 2: Sorry guys! Still v0.3 but this time I remembered to package the Icons! Please re-download if you already have this version but didn't see any pretty icons :3
|
|
7 Comments - Leave a Comment |
|
 |
|
 |
