vbProArcade Beta 2

vbProArcade Beta 2

1/5/03: Beta 2 released
9/12/02: Beta 1.03 zip updated to include safe mode fix
9/3/02: Beta 1.03 released -- small bug fixes, see below
9/1/02: Beta 1 of vbProArcade has been posted. Please see below for installation instructions.


Background Information

vbProArcade is a fully-customizable Flash arcade add-on for vBulletin, complete with game-by-game scoreboards, forum integration, a "champions" system, statistics, and more.

This is an extensive hack that is still in BETA form, and I don't recommend installing it if you are not willing to work through potential issues and future updates/upgrades! I am working on making the installation instructions as easy as possible, but it will probably be some time before it is perfect.

Watch this post for updates as they happen, and check out screenshots from the list below. If you would like to see the hack in action, you may visit my Shadows of Namek forums. You will need to register to play, but you can view the scoreboards and the arcade itself as a guest.


Credits

This hack materialized thanks to work and help from a number of people and forums. Here they are:

• Original vbTetris Hack by Erwin Loh
• Original vbTetris Leaderboard Hack by John Warwick (john.eovie)
• One of my users, Simon Steel, for work on Flash coding/recoding
• The users of one of my forums, Shadows of Namek, for their extensive testing of the system
• And The Kryptonian for pre-release and release candidate installation testing.

Games

So far, there are FIVE GAMES that work correctly with this hack. They are:

Breakout
Pacman
Snake
Space Invaders
Tetris

All five .SWF files are included in the release archive.

There is now a Flash Games Development Thread for the purpose of modifying existing games to work with vbProArcade, or for creating new games to be compatible with vbProArcade. If you have a game that you wish to see modified but don't know how, post the .FLA source in that thread and hopefully somebody can assist you.


Installation Instructions

Download the file attached to this post, unzip it and familiarize yourself with the contents BEFORE doing anything.

There are TWO separate files worth reading, the Documentation and the Installation Instructions. I recommend that you read both BEFORE doing anything else.

Once you have done this, the instructions to be followed are contained in vbproarcade-install.txt. Follow them as precisely as possible. If you encounter an error somewhere, it is likely that you missed a step or made a small error. Please double-check your work BEFORE posting about problems here.

And it cannot be said enough: read that file before you do anything, and if you are unsure of something, please post your question(s) before attempting to install the hack.


Problems and Fixes/Workarounds (as of 1/5)

• None

Known Bugs/Limitations

Here is the list of stuff that I know does not work. I will be working towards correcting these bugs BEFORE adding new features for the next release.

• Netscape will allow you to play the games but not record scores
• If a user uses the "Back" button to go to the game screen, and does not refresh before playing, the score will result in a Security Violation. This is by design.

Screen Shots for Beta 2

Here is the list of posts from this thread that contain screen shots for the new version. Check them out!

• Main Arcade Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...106#post292106
• Game Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...107#post292107
• Game Over Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...109#post292109
• Scoreboard: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...110#post292110
• Top Score Board: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...111#post292111
• Admin Modify Game: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...112#post292112
• Who's Online Display: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...113#post292113
• User Detail Screen: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...811#post337811
• Admin Score Editor: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...736#post338736
• Champ System in Postbit: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...745#post338745
• Modify Games in Admin CP (contracted): https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...858#post389858
• Modify Games in Admin CP (expanded): https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...859#post389859

Upcoming Features

This is the stuff that is in progress for future release:

• Complete Admin Panel Scoreboard Editor
• Additional integration with vB
• Even better Who's Online screen

Some have emailed or PM'd me asking if I would accept donations for my work on this hack, and yes, I certainly will, and any and all support is greatly appreciated. With over 2,000 lines of original PHP code, in addition to HTML and Flash work, I have spent a great deal of time developing and debugging the source for this, and it is a great feeling to have people like it so much that they want to give something back.

All donations received go directly back into supporting my websites and my design activities. You may click here to donate via Paypal. Note that donations are by no means required, and not donating does not mean you won't get support for the hack.

Last but not least, thanks for checking this out!

[Dark Jim]

Find this in proarcade.php:

PHP Code:

    if (($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] != 2) and
        ($bbuserinfo[usergroupid] != 5) and 


You have to add each usergroup here that you want to allow to use the arcade.

[Audionuts]

thanks guys that did it

[SHoeSTeR]

I re-downloaded the zip and replaced the file and i get the same error, can someone send me the old proarcade.php file please?

[futureal]

Originally posted by SHoeSTeR
I re-downloaded the zip and replaced the file and i get the same error, can someone send me the old proarcade.php file please?

The zip that is currently in the first post has the correct file. I just double checked it and it does not contain the line of code that you are getting an error on...

[futureal]

Originally posted by eckels2
I've seen a lot of members on different sites with the same problem I'm having, so there's some kind of requirement that I don't think everyone knows about, or something...

The only think i can think of is that it's somehow related to my flash plugin. does anyone know of a way to uninstall a flash browser plugin? I'm already updated to the most recent version, but I wonder if a clean install of the plugin would work better than this....

I am going through known bugs and whatnot with the Flash player to see if I can find anything, and asking around some other places on the net.

I am not sure what kind of information would be most useful to gather from people. We've already determined it's not based on the browser version or the plugin version. Do you have anything odd in terms of a net connection, like a robust firewall, internet connection sharing or anything of that sort?

edit: Also if possible, let me know what your security settings are in IE, and whether or not you are going through a proxy server. I have been reading stuff on FlashKit about anomalous behavior with Flash and IE -- those are just a couple of the possibilities.

further edit: Another idea I've had is that it might have something to do with your caching options. In IE, check the "Settings" under "Temporary Internet Files" and let me know what it says (Always check, Check when IE starts, Auto, Never). Thanks.

[futureal]

eckels2: I went ahead and modified one of the games (Pacman -- one of two that I have access to right now) with one of the ideas that I had.

Please upload this to your arcade dir and change the filename in the Admin CP to match pacman-beta.swf (this way we'll know for sure that you're testing the new version of the swf) and give it a shot.

My hunch (and it's only a hunch, believe me) is that this is a browser cache issue of some sort. As a result, I hardcoded the action and game into the URL that Flash is passing to the script, and then appended a randomly generated number to the URL to force the browser to think that it's a new (or rather, unique) page. The chances of this actually fixing the problem aren't that high, but it should at least give us a better idea of what we're dealing with.

The file is attached here. Thanks!

[futureal]

In other vbProArcade news, I got inspired tonight to make the navigation bar ($navbar) easier to use.

The end result is that there is now a hierarchal navbar much like standard vBulletin.

All pages have:

Your Forum > Arcade

Sub pages have:

Your Forum > Arcade > Game Title
Your Forum > Arcade > Game Title Scoreboard
Your Forum > Arcade > Game Title Top Score Board
etc.

And with Beta 2, there will be sub-sub-pages, such as:

Your Forum > Arcade > Game Title Scoreboard > User Name's Scores for Game Title

But the best part about this system is that it uses the vBulletin navigation system, which means the template code has been reduced to simply "$navbar" and it will incorporate any changes you make the following templates:

navbar
nav_joiner
nav_linkoff
nav_linkon

This should make life easier from an Admin point of view.

These changes WILL be in Beta 2.

[SHoeSTeR]

do you have aim or icq or something I can talk to you on? because I am still getting this error go to http://www.mtgshoebox.com/forums/proarcade.php to see it for yourself.

[Link14716]

Works for me dude. You might want to Enable all of your games, though

[SHoeSTeR]

your kidding? I still get the same error....why? lol