New Poll!

Power Poll, Extend!

Enough Dragon Ball references.  To the right of the dodelledo (-->) is a new poll, asking what sort of features you, gentile readers need the most.

To the left (<--) is a +1 button if you are so inclined.  Please let others know if you think this project is hot, or at least worth talking about.

Thanks to all people reading up, I hope to not have to do more blog maintenance for a while now.

ZBott out!

Web Based Options

Hey all,

Still alive, still kicking, still reading up on stuff.  I finally got my book on XML, and working on streamlining the back end so it's worth, well, stuff.  It's given me several new options that will be alot, LOT easier to work with versus the way I was planning on making it.  Literally a quarter of the typing needs to be done with XML parsing over the previous way.

In the pursuit of this info, though, I came across a job offer looking for a JavaScript guy, which at some point I studied.  While brushing up on my 'Script, I realized if there might be another option, hinting back at the web-based solution for Mobile Grapevine.  Still the same great service, and making the rules set something to be downloaded instead of hard coded, but I can program it once for all systems (iOS, Android, WebOS, even the dreaded MS8!) and get the same functionality.  The problem then becomes you need to always be connected.  I might be able to even work around that given enough time.  A second problem is that JavaScript is not related to Java (JavaScript came out a little after Java and tried to suck in programmers with a confusing name), so everything I worked on so far would have to be completely redone.

Still looking into it while I work on XML parsing for Java.  I'll hopefully get some screen shots by the end of next month and work toward multiple windows in one applet by September.  The pole shows people want tabs over a single window, so I WILL have that functionality, but it comes after I get the back end working correctly.

ZBott out!

PS: Again, whoever clicked the ad: Thank you!  Each click gives me on average $1.50 lately, and for each $10 in my AdSense account, I can transfer over to my bank, and then buy me the foods.  I'd click on them, myself, but it's against my contract.

DOMinating

Hey all,

Working on parsers for XML still, and while it's definitely the right track, I wish I started down this one months ago.  I've gotten my project to spit out some data now, scrubbed all on it's own!

On the left is the scrubbed data with headers letting me know where it's attached to, the right is the original GEX in Notepad.  Easier to ready, but nowhere where I need it to be.

My idea is to get it into a tree, like the ones used for file structures, then break those into pieces.  A GEX file then can transport out 50 characters, and when loaded into Mobile Grape Vine it will turn them into 50 separate windows with the character data in the correct field for the venue it's part of.  Getting close, more work needed.

My productivity might hit zero this summer.  I'm extremely strapped for cash, and time researching and at the computer is looking like it's going to be sacked to do things like work.  Rent, daycare, electricity, the usual woes, damnable money.

ZBott out.

The XML Menace!

Hey all,

Interesting update, or at least I hope so for people curious on where I hope to be going with this project in the long run.  So I've talked about a bit the sort of end goal, where version 1 will be at, so here goes a bit of explanation:

Mobile Grapevine isn't about just supporting old World of Darkness Mind's Eye Theater, it's about providing support to all games with the new technology we have in hand that is only getting better every year.  MET and backward support for Grapevine is the current stage, a test that I know I have players for on a grand scale who will report back readily.

Luckily, I think I got the right start with XML.  What it will do is three fold:

• Store and make it easier to transfer game files (characters, equipment, messages, updates)
• Hold rules for the system to quickly process through when activated
• Keep logs machine readable then display them in human readable text when required.

It also had me thinking on how basic parts of a game look.  All role playing games are essencially the varying levels of complexity of the same four components:

• Statistics - The numbers to be weighed on an object, be it a character or a weapon
• Abilities - The functions of the object
• Items - Things that can be added or removed from an object
• History - The list of what has happened to an object over time, including increasing stats, etc.

Some games have one stat, "Alive/Dead", while others have so many it needs a whole program just to take track of that (And why not Mobile Grapevine?).  Same for abilities and items.

What will differentiate them is flags and attributes.  Stats will need primary and secondary, rolled/calculated/purchased, static or spendable, et cetera, et cetera.  These will make it where having mother and daughter (or master and slave if your into that sort of lingo) for stats, abilities, and items, and not just in their own categories.  A sword has it's own set of stats, like damage; it's own abilities like slashing damage; and sub items like hilt and blade.  All of these are highly important for the item, even more so when games require a significant amount of complexity when players do wacky shenanigans like enchant each component of an item then assemble it into some sort o a Voltron esque weapon.  

The next step then is the interaction of these components per the games schema, determining how each stat works and when, where the abilities and their activation come into play, spends, and so on.  This will get very, very complex as any major game tends to have books and books of just stat and ability interactions with items upon items, and that's not looking at things like the character's own body as a item in the abstract sense of the program.  All of this will be handled by scripts, and, hopefully, be attractive to companies as well as players, and the big houses will start making these rules for players and distributing them... or paying me to enter them into the system for them!

As it stands, I'm stuck "hard coding" so everything is enforced at the moment, and it's just MET-oWoD.  Thus the stall out as I research XML.

Thanks for time and patience, if I was working on this full time I could show faster results, but alas.

ZBott out.

PS: To whoever clicked, thank you!