Checking for Level Change

[doberlec]

I got a small question. How can I check if a user has progressed to a new level? I could of course write his status to a table and check for changes... is this the only possibility?

[Revan]

Yes it is.
Levels are calculated on-the-fly using a function parsing the level algorythm, there exist no records of previous levels or when such a progression took place.

[doberlec]

Alrighty, then I guess I have to hack the hack for my perpose :D After all, a quick query might even be faster than all the parsing through the level algorithm. By the way, the hack is awsome :)

[Revan]

Thanks :)
What are you trying to do, anyways?

[doberlec]

I'm the Community Manager from a mid-sized european games publisher (www.deepsilver.com) and I'm currently building a customized vb-board for an upcoming community. The game hasn't been announced yet, but it's setting is the WWII. Now my goal is to redo your RPG hack in the WWII setting with tanks. This seems quite far fetched at first glance, but if you look a bit closer, there are many areas where role playing gameplay mechanics work quite well. As for now, I'm working on those major features:

-> Upgrades for all parts of your tank e.g. cannons, camouflage, plates, melee weapons, etc. (aktive and passive effects)
-> Skillpoints on levelchange (that's why I asked the question above)
-> A Skilltree where those points could be used to buy improvements or special moves (Diablo 2 anyone? :D)
-> Redo most of the GUI and improve usability (e.g. better handling through Unit Creation Wizard)
-> Translate everything into german/military/WWII lingo ;)
-> Another major change will be that you need to buy and stock ammo to survive on the battlefield

Those are the major things. There will of course be small additions, but I'm not sure how much of them will be implemented. One major headache will be the balancing of the units, but there are good resources on the net about tank balancing in WWII games so I hope the game will also be fun to play after all, hehe. By the way, I also have some questions about how the levels are calculated e.g. progress or exp vs. progress of the stats. Are such infos generally available in a kind of documentation, or do I need to ask the questions?

By the way, how do you guys live with those rehacks. Is it ok, when you show up in the credits of the board? Besides, I'm not sure if I can publish the hack after it's been completed. For one reason, that would depend on my employer, on the other hand I'm currently working with the aim that the whole thing works. There are currently no plans to release it, cause I simply have no clue how much work it would be to turn all this into an installable form. Oh well, only time will tell :)

[Revan]

By the way, I also have some questions about how the levels are calculated e.g. progress or exp vs. progress of the stats. Are such infos generally available in a kind of documentation, or do I need to ask the questions?If it's not in the Admin Manual, then you have to pick open functions_rpg.php and understand the log() and pow()'s yourself.
Because I sure as hell don't understand them :p

By the way, how do you guys live with those rehacks. Is it ok, when you show up in the credits of the board? Besides, I'm not sure if I can publish the hack after it's been completed. For one reason, that would depend on my employer, on the other hand I'm currently working with the aim that the whole thing works. There are currently no plans to release it, cause I simply have no clue how much work it would be to turn all this into an installable form. Oh well, only time will tell :)Credits will do fine. *waves hand* Credits will do fine.[/Qui-Gon Jin] ;)
If you want your employer's board to be unique, you shouldn't release it.
I'm not too sure I am comfortable with a rehack released either, because this might complicate my desires to keep this RPG Hack on vB only...
Of course, there's nothing stopping you from writing the entire stuff from scratch THEN release, only using this code for guidance and how-to's. ;)


BTW, the 4 first points in your feature list are things I hope to accomplish by the 3rd ETA in my sig ;)
(Not saying you shouldn't do it yourself, mind you :p)

[doberlec]

Alrighty then, I'll give it a try. I'm by the way using an older, I hope more stable version of your hack as the basis. V3 will be nice, but I'm not sure if it will make the timeframe I project for my hack for the board and besides, it's currently not a stable basis given its beta status. My main concern apart from getting it to work are the security issues attached to all that php and mysql stuff. After all, I don't want cheating going on, or all my precious balancing is going down the drain ;) I already read your post in the Tipps&Tricks area about security, and most of it seems to be essential. I'm not sure If I'm allowed to show some wip-screens from my project as the game isn't announced yet, but once it's up and running I'll provide here the link for testing of course :)

[Revan]

If you are using v2 as a basis, you should know that theres millions of exploits all over the place.
And no, I don't mean like SQL Injection Attacks, I mean ways for your members to cheat the system :p

[doberlec]

AArgh :D

[Revan]

You didn't think I gave the hack a whole new version number just to keep up with vBulletin, or because it sounds cooler, now did you? :p

[doberlec]

Well, I think I'll give the new Beta a whirl then. Once I know how to hack it for my perposes I can also incorporate the changes in the final and hopefully stable version of the rpg hack. Besides, when I do my balancing effords it's probably better to start with the Beta of V3 right away cause as I saw, there are major changes on the level/exp calculation side, and I don't want to do recalculate all of this this when I need to upgrade in future.

[Revan]

And since we haven't seen this forum completely overrun by problem queries yet, we can assume that the rest is pretty stable ;)