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!

[Pseudomizer]

Hi @LL,

First of all: Nice Hack and it was a lot of work to create such a hack. Very nice and very good work.

But let's come to a strange thing which occured currently. Here is the background:

I installed the hack on my beta forum. It's windows 2000 server with the latest PHP and MySQL db on it. It is a complete replication of my production environment where i run SuSe Linux and the same PHP and MySQL version. The only difference is, that the server is linux and not windows.

Your hack worked fine on the windows server and it was easy to install on the linux server. But i CAN NOT add icons to new games.

So i checked the whole thread here. A lot of bla bla and there was only 1 good answer to this problem. But finally it did NOT help. I tried every path in the generall options. The problem is, that in your hack you store the blob of the graphic in the database.

Right now i used the workaround to dump the corresponding lines from my test environment and import them into the production db. But this was not your intention when you created the hack.

And i checked also safe mode upload for PHP ( as already mentionend in an earlier posting ) and my avatar uploads are working fine in my vbulletin forum.

I also tried to reinstall the hack and start from scratch on both environments. I did the same steps on both servers. Finally it worked as expected on the windows server but it worked NOT on the linux server.

Could you please investigate this problem because there are 5 people in this thread where only 1 guy helped himself by fixing his path problem. So i assume that there are 4 more people here including me waiting for a fix or a solution for this problem.

But please keep in mind: Your hack is great and we love it all !!!

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer

[MaDCaT75]

This hack works really great but it doesnt record any scores! Whats wrong?

Also the links are the same color as my table color and I wanna change that for the arcade..... cant edit the custom templates! I am using IE 6!

[PixelFx]

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

version 2.1? the above sounds cool, quoted from the front page of the site

I'm just about to install this, was wondering when the next update was coming out again for those of us that use vb 2.3.2 and are not planning on a vb3.0 update, it would be kewl to get the up coming features.

If it's just work on admin layout or other I can help if needed

WISH LIST:
- Being able to record top 5 scores for month for all games on a sperate page, called Hall of fame, each month's scores would would be archived.

- One that is done, then running wipe scores for the main arcade, to help keep the arcade section of the datebase smaller. And still keep records for members.

- Link had made a jackpot addon, for the store hack, although this hasn't been updated for 2.3.x, I'd love to see something like this again for the store hack.

How it would work in a nut shell is, members win so many points for the store hack, when they get 1st 2nd or 3rd place in the arcade. anyway that doesn't beat the score, points would be allowcated to a pool, or jack pot. till someone got the highest score.. or 1st 2nd or 3rd, people in 2nd and 3rd would get a portion of the jackpot. Also I'd like to see if someone remakes the addon, have support to toggle how many points people get, when they win etc etc.

anyway thats part of my wish list I'd love to see for this hack, I'd do it my self, but still learning, however I can help with templates

[MaDCaT75]

08-12-03 at 10:01 AM MaDCaT75 said this in Post #1466
This hack works really great but it doesnt record any scores! Whats wrong?

I still cannot record my scores!!! But my other members can!!

[PixelFx]

check firewall?

[Pseudomizer]

08-06-03 at 02:54 PM Pseudomizer said this in Post #1465
Hi @LL,

First of all: Nice Hack and it was a lot of work to create such a hack. Very nice and very good work.

But let's come to a strange thing which occured currently. Here is the background:

I installed the hack on my beta forum. It's windows 2000 server with the latest PHP and MySQL db on it. It is a complete replication of my production environment where i run SuSe Linux and the same PHP and MySQL version. The only difference is, that the server is linux and not windows.

Your hack worked fine on the windows server and it was easy to install on the linux server. But i CAN NOT add icons to new games.

So i checked the whole thread here. A lot of bla bla and there was only 1 good answer to this problem. But finally it did NOT help. I tried every path in the generall options. The problem is, that in your hack you store the blob of the graphic in the database.

Right now i used the workaround to dump the corresponding lines from my test environment and import them into the production db. But this was not your intention when you created the hack.

And i checked also safe mode upload for PHP ( as already mentionend in an earlier posting ) and my avatar uploads are working fine in my vbulletin forum.

I also tried to reinstall the hack and start from scratch on both environments. I did the same steps on both servers. Finally it worked as expected on the windows server but it worked NOT on the linux server.

Could you please investigate this problem because there are 5 people in this thread where only 1 guy helped himself by fixing his path problem. So i assume that there are 4 more people here including me waiting for a fix or a solution for this problem.

But please keep in mind: Your hack is great and we love it all !!!

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer

>> The hacker has agreed to provide support for this hack <<

Let's see when we will see some answers.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer

[MaDCaT75]

Yesterday at 11:42 AM PixelFx said this in Post #1469
check firewall?

All I have is norton firewall..... could that be the reason?

[MaDCaT75]

Yesterday at 02:31 PM Pseudomizer said this in Post #1470
>> The hacker has agreed to provide support for this hack <<

Let's see when we will see some answers.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer

Yes I still wanna know why my scores arent being recorded... and a few of my other members too!!!!

Also how do I make it so new games that I added get their scores recorded??????

[RetroDreams]

Comments aren't stored? Has this been fixed? I've seen it asked over 20 times but never answered.

[MaDCaT75]

I guess the author is too busy or something? Doesnt anyone else know why my scores arent being recorded in IE6????