USA Games News Sep. 22, 2007
Introduction Hello gamers, Welcome again to the monthly USA Games news letter. As always things here are running a little behind schedule. That tends to happen when I discover things that I would like to fix, change, or improve before a product goes to full release status. Though, one reason Montezuma's Revenge beta 2 is running behind schedule is that I took several days off of development as I reformatted my laptops hard drive, upgraded it to Windows Vista, installed all the patches and upgrades for my software, and that took more time than I had anticipated. However, on the bright side Montezuma's Revenge is coming along rather nicely, and STFC 2.0is now in the works. So read on to get the full scoop. Montezuma's Revenge Montezuma's Revenge public beta 2 will likely be a nice upgrade for those still playing beta 1. Many of the serious bugs and issues have been resolved, and there are some new features in the works for beta 2. In beta 1 and earlier versions there was a well known bug in which a player would die during a jump and then respawn at the exact point where he/she died rather than returning to the start of the level. I have completely rewritten the jump code, and as a result this bug is no longer in the game. Also sometimes it was possible to jump through walls, doors, and other opsticals. While it was pretty rare in beta 1, the new jump code has also resolved this bug. New in beta 2 there is now an additional bonus level to play in the demo. The new demo will allow demo players to play level 1, 2, and the bonus level. For additional levels you will have to obtain a full licensed copy once it becomes available this winter. At this point in time I am personally working on a patch for beta 2 which will support multiuser environments under XP and Vista. I don't think it will take long to make the necessary changes to support multiple users and accounts since the Microsoft .Net documentation I have read indicates what I want to do is a pretty miner upgrade all things considered. As far as a release schedule I don't have one yet. Though, I will be certain to let everyone know once I have a clearer idea of when things are going to happen. STFC 2.0. Unlike the 1.x series I don't think 2.0 will take nearly as long to create as the first version of the game. Mainly because I have allot of code from games like Montezuma's Revenge I can just copy, cut, and paste over into STFC. For example, I can easily reuse the Formula, Audio, Voice, and other classes for Montezuma's Revenge with no modifications for STFC. That alone will save weeks of time, testing, and development. A week or so ago I sat down and wrote all the base classes for the Klingon, Federation, Cardassian, Romulan, and Borg ships and stations. As a result the prerequisite classes and functionality has already been put into the game. Once I get Montezuma's Revenge finished and get Raceway off to a good start I should be able to rewrite most of the code necessary to make STFC playable. Sincerely, Thomas Ward Developer for USA Games Interactive http://www.usagames.us --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
