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!

[futureal]

Regarding the URL problems:

The hack assumes that in your vBulletin Options section, the value of "URL" is in the "http://www.yoursite.com/somedir" format. If you are having problems, make sure the URL is set up in that format and it should work OK.

For those of you who *were* having problems with that, let me know what your "URL" value was so that I can fix the logic of that function.

[futureal]

Originally posted by Apok2002
hmmm....all went well until the allgames.sql query was run. I ran it both by source, and then also by copy/pasting. Got the same errors. Tried to run the queries one at a time, still had issues:

The query you are trying to one does not look right -- it has slashes in it. I'm not sure where they came from, I just double-checked my allgames.sql and it looks good. Make sure those slashes aren't in there, they will screw up the query.

It should look exactly like this:

PHP Code:

INSERT INTO arcadegames VALUES (
 1, 
 'tetris', 
 'Tetris', 
 'The classic game of Tetris that we all know and love...', 
 'tetris.swf', 
 '', '', 0, 0, 0, 
 'Tetris Champion', 
 '#FF0000', 
 '$tetrisscore', 
 550, 380, 
 'classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0"', 
 'username=$username&s=$session[sessionhash]&highscore=$highscore&bbtitle=$bbtitle&location=$vpa_bburl&gamename=$game', 
 '<param name="quality" value="high">\r\n<param name=bgcolor value="#576375">', 
 'pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"'
); 


Note that if all else fails, you can always add the games manually via the Admin CP. It should work just as well, it will just take slightly longer.

[Apok2002]

Not sure where the slashes came from either...perhaps corrupted during download?? I don't know.

I copied pasted the above, this is what I got:

SQL-query:

INSERT INTO arcadegames VALUES (
1,
'tetris',
'Tetris',
'The classic game of Tetris that we all know and love...',
'tetris.swf',
'', '', 0, 0, 0,
'Tetris Champion',
' '$tetrisscore',
550, 380,
'classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab 'username=$username&s=$session[sessionhash]&highscore=$highscore&bbtitle=$bbtitle&location=$v pa_bburl&gamename=$game',
'\r\nMySQL said: You have an error in your SQL syntax near '$tetrisscore',
550, 380,
'classid="clsidBack

Also, adding them manually via admincp results in the errors in my above post.

[futureal]

Have you tried uploading it with no thumbnail?

Your server looks like it has "safe mode" enabled in PHP, which is preventing fopen() from opening the temporary uploaded file. I don't have an immediate solution for that, I will have to go back and find another way to do it.

I just looked at your query once again, and I see the error. This part:

[sql]
'Tetris Champion',
' '$tetrisscore',
[/sql]

Should be:

[sql]
'Tetris Champion',
'#FF0000',
'$tetrisscore',
[/sql]

I'm not sure how it could be changing the query like that. Could you be using some weird thing to cut and paste, or a weird file editor? I'm really stumped on that one.

[Apok2002]

ack! nvm...I'm SURE this is due to not having 2.2.7. I have 2.2.6 installed and was trying to get around the upgrade. This has to be it.

I didn't want to have to upgrade because I have several hacked .php files w/ all the hacks on the site. Looks like I'll have no choice though if I wanna use this hack (which I do).

I'll update sometime soon, then check the thread back. Updates are a lot of work and I just updated to 2.2.6 a few weeks ago. lol

[futureal]

Here is a corrected version of proarcade.php that fixes a couple of problems from the original release:

- division by zero in top score board
- URL logic problems (should be fine now)

This is for Beta 1 ONLY! If you have a different version, do not use this. As of 9/1/02, the first post in this thread has been updated to include this file.

[futureal]

Originally posted by Apok2002
ack! nvm...I'm SURE this is due to not having 2.2.7. I have 2.2.6 installed and was trying to get around the upgrade. This has to be it.

This shouldn't be the problem. I installed the hack on a fresh 2.2.6 last night and it worked just fine. The division by zero error was the only one I could find.

[NTLDR]

Originally posted by futureal
The hack assumes that in your vBulletin Options section, the value of "URL" is in the "http://www.yoursite.com/somedir" format. If you are having problems, make sure the URL is set up in that format and it should work OK.

That would explain it, my forums are in the root of the domain: http://forums.ukwnetwork.com so there is no directory on the end

Also I have made this change in the bit of code for fuctions.php so that I can place the text for Game Champ anywhere in the postbit, not just under the usertitle, just place $post[arcade] in the postbit template.

PHP Code:

        // Start vbProArcade
        
                        // do vbProArcade champ system
                        if ($vpa_champs != 0) {
                        $post[arcade]="";
                          for ($vpa = 0; $vpa < count($vpa_champs); $vpa++) {
        
                            if (($vpa_champs[$vpa][championid] == $post[userid]) && ($vpa_champs[$vpa][championactive] == 1)) {
        
                              $post[arcade] .= "<br><b>" 
                                                  .iif($vpa_champs[$vpa][championcolor] != "","<font color=\"".$vpa_champs[$vpa][championcolor]."\">","")
                                                  .$vpa_champs[$vpa][championtext]
                                                  .iif($vpa_champs[$vpa][championcolor] != "","</font>","")."</b>";
        
                            }
        
                          }
        
                        }
        
        // End vbProArcade 


[futureal]

NTLDR: Thanks! I should have thought of that myself. In the next version that will actually look to a template, so people can change between icons/text and so on.

ALL: I have fixed both the divide-by-zero error and the URL error. They should both work fine now with no modifications. Please see a couple posts back for the corrected file (also updated the first post).

Thanks!

[futureal]

Originally posted by chad777
I am getting the division error too.. So far everything else works great.

See this post for a fix: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...048#post294048

How can I add a different Icon by users name if they are the king of a certain game.

King icon for each game.

so say I am king of tetris and snake
I would have 2 icons by my name
1 for tetris and 1 for snake. ?

This will be included in the next version of the hack. I tabled it for now so I could get this Beta out. So far this is the most requested feature.