FFR Realtime Multiplayer Status

As of this writing, FFR multiplayer is about to surpass 140,000 plays in about 2 weeks. We have fixed numerous bugs in the game but we still have many features to implement so that we can finish our goals in FFR Realtime Multiplayer.

There are currently 2 major bugs which I won’t discuss but which shall be fixed in the next couple of days. Those of you who play often know what these bugs are. I guess you could call them exploits.

The next new feature will be alternate playfields and then the coveted matchmaking system will be finished. There will be a system ranking/level number for the matchmaking system. This means that you will have 3 possible rankings on FFR. 1) overall ranking 2) public multiplayer ranking 3) matchmaking multiplayer ranking.

Any questions? Suggestions? We are all ears as we put features into the game.

Cheers,

Synthlight

Hear New FFR Music Before It’s In The Game!

NOTE: SONG OF THE WEEK WILL BE RELEASED LIVE ON THE RADIO!

Friday the 13th FFR RADIO SHOW!

Hello everyone,

I (Chardish) and lightdarkness are the two guys responsible for putting new songs in FFR every week. We love our jobs, and because of this we’ve got months worth of music already planned out to go in the game.

But what fun is it keeping all these secrets to ourselves? We want to share this music with you now! So we’ve decided to do a radio show on FFR Radio tonight, Friday The 13th, to not only get back on the FFR Radio airwaves but also play over a half hour worth of new FFR music from new and returning FFR artists.

But that’s not all we’ve got planned…I (Chardish) will be playing plenty of great music I’ve discovered in the months since I last did a radio show. It should be a fantastic night, and you’re not going to want to miss it. I will be taking requests!

To listen, just click the FFR Radio Winamp link on the left side of the page. We’ll kick things off @ 10:30 Eastern.

For talk during the show, get IRC! Go to www.mirc.com to get the client, then connect to the server irc.othersideirc.net (after picking a nickname, type “/server irc.othersideirc.net” into the main command bar) then join #ffrradio (two f’s, two r’s.) We look forward to chatting with you during the show, taking requests, and hearing feedback – your opinions about the music will help us determine the order in which we release the songs.

So, where are you going to be at 10:30 PM Eastern tonight? Why, in front of your computer, of course, listening to Chardish and lightdarkness on FFR Radio!

Cheers,
-Chardish

Help Us Help You

We are trying to figure out why a few of you behind firewalls etc. cannot connect to the multiplayer even though it is running across port 80. We have a few ideas why this may happen but would like to troublshoot this further.

If you cannot connect to multiplayer, please respond to this news post and let us know as much of your configuration as possible. Please don’t bother responding if you just say “I can’t connect”. A response like that will not help anyone troubleshoot the issue. Helpful things would include location (work, school, home), your firewall configuration, type of firewall. Are you connecting via proxy? What speed and type of connection are you running?

We will be adjusting settings today and multiplayer may be restarted a few times during these restarts. I will keep everyone updated here.

Cheers,

Synthlight

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – Also, if you could test your connectivity here and report if you have success with all those tests and still cannot get into multiplayer

http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_16466

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – Clear your cache and refresh FFR. I am testing with port 8080 this morning for Multiplayer. If anyone has good/bad experiences, please post.

Ready… Set…. Almost..

So lets roll back time a few days here.. It was Saturday evening and being the geekoids that we are, we were projecting the total pageviews for the night.. You see, we were hoping that we were going to bust 1 milllllllllllion page views for the day. We had just recently surpassed 900,000 because of multiplayer and knew it was only a matter of time.
So the clock kept ticking and it was getting closer.. and closer.. 900,000…. 920,000… We had decided at this point if we reached 1 million that we would release 2 new songs to FFR that night as a kind of celebration for hitting that milestone. And then it started to get late and traffic started dropping off (1am central).. 930,000… 940,000.. Finally we ended up hitting 950,787 page views for the day and never quite made it..

Or so we thought.

Today I was going over some server optimization stuff and realized in my weblogs that we had surpassed the 1 million mark! I had forgotten about all the people that access parts of this site in ways that they shouldn’t (illegal linking). And because of those ingrates, we were able to reach our goal: 1,001,50 page views in a 24 hour period.

Hats off to all the bastards that like to call our work their own. To the illegal linkers and the places that surround FFR with advertising on their crappy sites so that they can make a buck off of something that we poured our heart and souls into. Something that we provide for free everyday. Without them, we wouldn’t have made it to 1 million page views in a single 24 hour timespan. (no, I’m not bitter about it)

In celebration of all the people that support FFR, that play the game day after day and to the people that have stuck around for the ride during the last 3 years, we are going to release 2 levels as kind of a mini-thankyou. Both files were stepped by Aperson and FFR sync’d by LD & Aperson.

SnowFlakes by Prophecy (Misc Section) and FFR Evolution by DJ Destruction (Secret Section)

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Synthlight

Multiplayer is Rolling

I have released an update to FFR Realtime Multiplayer today. This update should offer some speedup on slower CPU’s and it also takes care of anyone who tries to quit mid game.

These are the changes.

If you opponent quits mid game, it automatically makes their score 0 and declares you the winner. If they quit in the menu selection or after a score has been recorded, it just lets them exit peacefully.

Tic-Tac-Toe has been removed for now. It turns out that the routines for Tic-Tac-Toe have been causing some slowdown in the processing of the game

Cleaned up some routines and elminated some continous loops that were wasting CPU

Added prelimnary graphics for playfield switching

Cheers,

Synthlight

*Today we will hit 60,000+ multiplayer games played since last week!!”*

***LD EDIT***
Today, we add our next Song of the week, Halogen by Marc Horizon. This is the second song added this week, wednesday we added a bonus track for may in the purchased section. It is a remake or a version 2 of the song Rondo Alla Turca. You can purchase it for 1500 credits.

New Multiplayer Feature

Clear your cache and load multiplayer to test a new feature that I am working on. See if you can guess what the feature is.
(no, it’s not other playfields yet).

Cheers,

Synthlight

FFR Realtime Multiplayer Version 2.0 is Up & Running

You heard me right.. FFR Realtime Multiplayer is functional. As I speak there are just over 100 people logged into multiplayer playing FFR. The interface is aproximately 95% complete with just a few spots to tidy up.

Here are some things you should know about multiplayer

1) It is a true realtime multiplayer with side by side playfields.
2) If 2 people are playing, you can join as a “viewer” and watch their current game stats in realtime
3) You need a decent CPU to avoid lower frame rates.
—- I need to mention here that lower frame rates does not mean multiplayer lag,
—-it means that you need a faster CPU to draw 2 FFRs at the same time.
—- This problem will be alleviated. (refer to item #3)
4) I will be implementing a visual and non-visual mode (only shows second players realtime stats) for people with weaker CPUs.
5) All playfield types will eventually be supported. First up, Next Down and then the rest.
6) If it is unclear how to start a multiplayer game, read the instructions when you enter
7) Keep the chat clean in the multiplayer chat rooms.
The chat has auto-flood and word filter and it will autoban if you don’t behave.
9) Have fun and don’t forget to report bugs.
10) Multiplayer runs off a seperate dedicated server that I rent in order to maintain the highest quality connections and lowest ping time between players.

If you have any bugs to report, you need to explain them to me in a way where I can succesfully recreate those bugs from your instructions. Bug reports like “It won’t work” will just be ignored. Remember, the more details you give me, the quicker it gets fixed.

We have also (Thanks to LD) created an FFR Multiplayer Stats page where you can lookup any multiplayer game that you have played or any game that has been played on multiplayer for that matter. It is simple to use, you just click on “Overall” to see recent games played or “Personal” to see only the games that you were involved in. You can find the link for it on the left side of this page “FFR Multiplayer Stats”. Currently multiplayer only records the score into the database if both players are in the postgame lobby at the same time. If someone exits early, it will not record the score into the database. This is a bug and it is being worked on.

Other than that, have fun and see you in Multiplayer.

Oh yeah.. Did I mention that this is free? The only cost is that you spread the word about FFR and Multiplayer.

Cheers,

Synthlight

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – *FIXED* -You are now not allowed to leave the postgame lobby until the other player finishes the song, this ensures that the score will be recorded properly

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – *FIXED* -The multiplayer stats was only recording the first game played when you entered the room, fixed to record all games properly. You will need to clear your cache and reload the game in your browser to run the fixed version. Whoops!

Let me ASK you something…

I’m pleased to announce that FFR has acquired the talents of a new artist. The independent electronic artist ASK, of Japan, has agreed to let us use any of his music that we want to in our game. It’s very good music – kind of reminds me of Cranky. Or maybe Cranky reminds me of ASK. The point is, ASK is great, and we’re happy to have him on FFR.

If you liked Party4U in Purchased/R2, I’m sure you’ll like “Get Down.” I edited the song down to 2:09 for use on FFR – it’s fairly seamless, but make sure you visit his website (it’s in Japanese, but easy enough to get around) and check out the unbelievably awesome full version. It’s mind-bendingly good.

I’ve been listening to this song for over a year, and I’m very excited it’s finally on FFR. On a difficulty scale of 1-6, 6 being the hardest in FFR, I’d place it at about a high 4 or a low 5. Enjoy!

Multiplayer Status

Working on FFR Realtime Multiplayer tonight. It may be up and down while we change out code.

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – I believe we have fixed the bug that caused the “waiting for player X” error when 2 players were already in a room. This should be a great relief to many.

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – Well.. even in these early stages, Multiplayer seems to be a hit. We had about 40 multiplayer games running at the same time just a few minutes ago and I suspect the limitation was interface design and some unwanted server load. I will be moving the java server to it’s own dedicated server so that Multiplayer can live up to it’s potential of possibly thousands of concurrent games.

*EDIT SYNTHLIGHT* – Dedicated server for multiplayer has been purchased and we are in the process of setting up all the services. This will provide a top notch multiplayer experience with low lag. At the same time this new server will alleviate some of the pressure from the main server. You guys definately get your money’s worth!

*EDIT 3:02AM SYNTHLIGHT* – The dedicated server has been setup for continued testing with a treat for all of you behind a firewall at work or school, the MP service is setup on port 80 since we don’t need a webserver on that server. Enjoy while we develop

Cheers,

Synthlight