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]

Hi all,

I have returned to Madison after my west-coast swing (San Diego, LA, Vegas) and I can see that there are definitely some bug/issues to address with the hack.

I will begin working on isolating and fixing some of these over the weekend.

Note that, to my knowledge, the games only work in IE, because of the score redirect problem noted before. Netscape (and Opera, apparently) do not handle POST data correctly. The only solution is to pass the variables via GET, which opens up things to big time cheating.

I may have to go back to the drawing board on security. I was trying to think up a good way to add true encryption to the scores (e.g. PGP) but I am not sure I can pull it off with ActionScript. I will continue the search.

[xxxsaint]

welcome back..

[Littlebit]

anyone know how to fix the 404 error on redirect ...seems to do this in every browser but IE for windows platform

I'm still wondering if this is fixable , but I haven't heard from anyone about it... at least being worked on or why exactly it does this or anything relevant to the error...any response would be cool
thanks
-littlebit

[futureal]

Littlebit: Did you read the message I posted a couple of responses back? I addressed that very issue.

[Littlebit]

Futureal,
oops sorry about that...I guess I skimmed right over it. :surprised:
thanks for looking into trying to fix it.
Oh, don't forget to add all the Mac browsers to the list of not working without error too (Internet Explorer and Netscape for OS9 and OSX+)

[Ice Effect69]

Ok, i have the arcade hack and the games up and running, the thing is im trying to add some games that i found. I get them up on the arcade board, but it doesnt record the topscore, nor redirects to the scoreboard page. Is there anyway to fix this? if so how?

script is at http://prowrestlingdirect.com/forums/proarcade.php

[futureal]

Originally posted by Ice Effect69
Ok, i have the arcade hack and the games up and running, the thing is im trying to add some games that i found. I get them up on the arcade board, but it doesnt record the topscore, nor redirects to the scoreboard page. Is there anyway to fix this? if so how?

Have the games been modified to return score values and redirect to the correct page?

Check out the Flash Games Development thread in this same forum for more information.

[Link14716]

Now I am getting a parse error.

It occurs when you try to go to the user details page:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: array_sum() in /home/sites/site68/web/forums/proarcade.php on line 757

Line 757 is:

PHP Code:

$gamedetail_average = number_format(array_sum($allscores[$gamedetail_scores]) / count($allscores[$gamedetail_scores])); 


I am using vB 2.2.7 and Beta 2 (and an early PHP4 version). Any ideas on how to fix this?

[futureal]

It looks like array_sum must be a new function added to one of the more recent PHP versions.

Hmm...

[Link14716]

Yea probably. My host is supposed to upgrade apache, PHP, and other things soon, so I guess I'll have to wait.

[futureal]

You can make it work in the meantime, but without the average.

Just change that line to read:

PHP Code:

$gamedetail_average = 0; 


Then you're good to go.

[Link14716]

I also had to do it to $gamedetail_averagetime. I just commented out the probalem lines until PHP is upgraded.

[saint_seiya]

Hey, some of my users are getting this error:

You do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons: You do not have permission to access the page that you were trying to. Are you trying to edit someone else's post or trying to access administrative features? Check that you are allowed to perform this action in the Forum Rules. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account..

ANy help?

[SoloX]

Originally posted by saint_seiya
Hey, some of my users are getting this error:

You do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons: You do not have permission to access the page that you were trying to. Are you trying to edit someone else's post or trying to access administrative features? Check that you are allowed to perform this action in the Forum Rules. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account..

ANy help?

one possible reason is that they dont belong to the groups that are auth'ed to use arcade ...

[xxxsaint]

Originally posted by Da`Nacho


I've figured out the cause... It's the $vbchamptext and $vbchampicon if you use it in the postbit templates. Any time a browser reads a thread with a champion in it, online.php sees them as 'Playing in the Arcade' because they are being served the champtext or champicon from proimage.php.

I'll just pull the variables from my postbit templates for now, but it would be cool if there was a way of fixing this.

any updates on this problem ?