Assorted Announcements
53 Comments - 11475 Views
Next-Gen PlexPedia, New Moderators, etc.
Submitted By admin on 10/04/02
Mars Explorer, admin, Official 
This Document originally posted in the "Mars Explorer" Group

Greetings everyone!
 
 
My efforts of late have all been concentrated on PlexPedia - I have been evaluating dozens of different web application technology stacks to determine which will have the honor of launching our favorite knowledge repository into the future.
 
So far; the lead candidate is Tipfy (which is based upon Werkzeug), running in Python on Google's App Engine! Coming from my predominantly PHP background, Python has been a breath of fresh air - leaving me extremely pleased with the elegance and power of just about every aspect of this environment. Though there's nothing to see yet, PlexiPedia.com will be the testbed for the next-gen PlexPedia. More updates will follow as development progresses...
 
Other exciting technology developments include the release of Unity 3 this summer, availability of the Unity Terrain Toolkit, and the imminent release of Apple's most wonderful / lame product ever! (But I digress...)
 
 
I have recieved several reports of poor marsxplr.com performance of late - pages not loading, etc. If this is still an issue, please let me know! I will be fine tuning ATIServer to cope with the continually ramping traffic we have been experiencing.
 
 
Please welcome our new moderators - Mr_Mars (nominated by PointyBagels), and Ambassador_Spock (who nominated himself, please don't turn this into a trend :).
 
 
Also, I am sure you will enjoy cruising about in the two wonderful new worlds I just added - KingDVO's Candy Mountain and Eric's Capture The Flag special!
 
 
All the best,
 
-Aubrey
 
 
 

» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
5 days - 17,918v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 5:49 GMT
Good job Aubrey! Thanks for putting my world in too.

All the best,

Eric
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 6,110v
Posted 2010/04/05 - 4:17 GMT
we so need to make an under water abis world that will be dedicated to Charlie the unicorn lol due to his awesomeness!
 
LOL
 
The Plaza world will be coming soon,
 
Presented by Myself, KingDvo, and Bagel
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
3 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 6:18 GMT
Hi Aubrey!
Safari 4.0.5 often hangs indefinately. I have done more than I ever imagined to speed it up but to no avail.
Firefox is okay but gets hung occasionally and signs me out if I navigate to another site.
Chrome signs me out with every marsxplr click.
I play the game on the native Mac app and never in browser.
If something can be done, I sure would appreciate it.
Thanks
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 9:03 GMT
Have you tried Chrome within the last month or so? I believe I fixed the authentication issue with it.
 
I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing such issues. Does this occur on all ATI Network sites, or just Mars Explorer?
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
3 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/03 - 0:38 GMT
Occurs on marxplr.com and plexpedia.
 
Edit - Chrome works most of the time but can't always reply to PMs
 
Aubrey, please consider creating an occasional computer-oriented tutorial that teaches us to tune our computers for the game and home site?
 
Safari 4.0.5 is just unusable for me right now and I'm 98% sure it's not user error. Broken hearted about it.
 
I basically have to use three browsers to fully navigate marsxplr.com depending on what problems I encounter.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 days - 7,168v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 13:01 GMT
Thanks for keeping us updated Aubrey :)
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
5 days - 17,918v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 16:00 GMT
Aubrey,
 
I played my world and I noticed that the random boxes with that camouflage (sort of) texture were created solid. I actually wanted them to be portal.
 
Respectfully,
 
Eric
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 32,756v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 16:10 GMT
Yay!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 3,228v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 16:20 GMT
Awesome!  Can't wait to visit the "cake" (the cake is a lie!) again in Dvo's world!  :P  Oh, and, I don't want to bug you or anything, but did you get the PM I sent you with the link to my world?  I was wondering if you didn't get it, or just didn't want to put it in (which is completely fine).  Keep up the great work!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
5 days - 17,918v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 17:51 GMT
Aubrey,
 
All of the planks of that metallic texture aren't working on my CTF world. You can't drive on them and it causes me to need to reset because I sink in them. Please make them as Terrain and Terrain Object please. There is also that camouflage box problem still where they were meant be driven through.
 
Respectfully,
 
Eric
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
6 hours - 846v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 23:39 GMT
Wow! Thank you, Aubrey! I'll do my best!
 
EDIT: By the way, I have been encountering slow pages loading as well.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 22,845v
Posted 2010/04/02 - 23:57 GMT
Very nice job, Aubrey!
 
I find no problems so far.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 4,162v
Posted 2010/04/03 - 16:47 GMT
tried to go on plexpedia.com, and got this...
 
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
4 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/03 - 20:16 GMT
Plexipedia, or plexpedia? (There is a difference.)
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
6 hours - 846v
Posted 2010/04/05 - 17:27 GMT
It's Plexipedia, I think. I'm on a Windows right now, so the error message isn't the same, but I can't go there on a Mac or Windows.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 3,924v
Posted 2010/04/03 - 23:37 GMT
Awesome!
 
I really hate to bother you about this, but in "DVO's Candy Mountain", Dvo is in all caps, can you fix that? :)
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/06 - 3:50 GMT
All right:
 
  • I just optimized the code for several of ATIServer's most resource intensive operations and trimmed over three million user's records from ATIServer's "session persistence" layer. Page loads should be WAY faster now! Please let me know if you still experience any slowness while browsing my sites.
  • Dvo's Candy Mountain and Eric's CTF World have been significantly upgraded!
  • Achilles' ingenious new Chess World and Quasar's Citadel have been added.
  • plexIpedia will soon reflect some of the fun I have been having over the last couple days - it looks simple, but there is quite a bit of logic happening behind the scenes! I have nearly all the final components of the production technology stack implemented.
  • Tigerstorm (nominated by GTR) is now a moderator.
  • All our lovely icicles have now melted off the Mars Explorer logo :)
  • Please send me the links to any Messages which you can't view - I will get the system working.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
4 days - 12,413v
Posted 2010/04/06 - 4:38 GMT
Thanks Aubrey for uploading my world! Im looking forward to seeing the plexipedia soon!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 3,228v
Posted 2010/04/06 - 12:24 GMT
Welp.  No world.  Oh well.  :)  Can't wait to play the citidel though, but I have school in half in hour!  :(  Keep up the awesome work!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 days - 7,472v
Posted 2010/04/06 - 21:56 GMT
Hi,
Could you take a look at my mars crater world?  i sent you a PM about it but you didn't respond.
 
Thanks
Mr_Mars
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
3 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/07 - 0:33 GMT
Can't reply to MacDane in any browser. PMs from other users are fine so far.
 
 
Browsers timed - From Content to "Corrupt A Wish" (490) comments
Chrome - 31 seconds
Safari - gave up timing after more than 30 seconds
Firefox - 3 seconds
 
Hmmm
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 4:41 GMT
Messaging bug has been fixed!
 
It was all due to urls with "."s in them, which threw ATIServer into a static file serving mode. I added some logic to only activate the static mode if the first "." is within 10 chars of the end of the url, and all should now be well.
 
You are quite right about the "corrupt a wish" thread loading terribly slow - I don't know how FireFox managed to load it within three seconds at all unless it was cached. This is because the "hybrid" comment display algorithm is terribly inefficient when faced with hundreds of replies - and short of building a totally new system from scratch, there's really nothing I can do about it.
 
Since I am already in the process of building a totally new system from scratch, I decided to add a stopgap measure to PlexPedia's current comment display system for now. If you view a piece of content with more than 100 replies, PlexPedia will now automatically lock it's comment display style to "flat" to make sure it generates fast for you. Since this feature has been implemented, the Corrupt a Wish thread is loading for me in under a second.
 
If there are still any outstanding issues, please let me know!
 
-Aubrey
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
3 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 8:24 GMT
Ahhhh-HAH! 10 chars! I knew it!  What's a char?  Nevermind.  :)
 
Probably was cached and other browsers were cleared.
 
I can reply to MacDane now.
 
Thanks Aubrey. It was really getting so I really couldn't navigate the site in any browser and it all seems much better now.
 
Now, Dude hipped me to a trick. Change password to gain temporary speed loading pages on this site. Seems nuts but it instantly improved load times for about a day or so each PW change for both of us.
 
I still have 2 un-viewable PMs from maybe a year ago. Always says (2) Messages.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 15:07 GMT
I have no idea how a password alteration would affect the speed at which pages are generated. If it works, great! :)
 
I just fixed the final PM issue, which was caused by ATIServer's security preventing the messages from being shown due to spaces after the username in the "to" field confusing it.
 
Everything should now be pretty functional - please let me know if there are any other issues that would benefit from some attention.
 
-Aubrey
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 22,845v
Posted 2010/04/06 - 14:10 GMT
Thanks, Aubrey! I'll do my best.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
4 hours - 503v
Posted 2010/04/06 - 23:37 GMT
good, the speech was great hay hold on this summer as in almost now or in december for me i'm in the southern hemisphere so everything is a different 
 
thanx for keeping me updated
 
(MRG)(ACC) Mustanglover
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
3 hours - 215v
Posted 2010/04/07 - 18:38 GMT
Has anyone else gotten abug like this in Eric's Capture The Flag where the pyramid floats around in front of everything and follows the camera?
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 3,924v
Posted 2010/04/07 - 21:32 GMT
Yeah, I got that bug too!
 
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 4:11 GMT
Not a bug :)
 
The pyramids utilize a custom shader which renders them on top of all other objects, enabling vehicles to hide inside of them without their minimap arrows showing. It also provides the ancillary benefit of helping you to navigate straight to each base!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
5 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 4:32 GMT
And also blocks my view... Good concept but can definitely be tweaked.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 22,845v
Posted 2010/04/07 - 19:37 GMT
Yes.
 
I think, though, that that's part of the map....
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 hours - 376v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 0:08 GMT
Ack... it's happening to me too. Oh well.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 15:25 GMT
Thanks to a nomination by TheDude, please welcome our new moderator - Applesky!
 
Many thanks Applesky for your longstanding dedication to the benefit of our community.
 
-Aubrey
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
4 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 19:02 GMT
Took me a while to comment on this...
 
Plexipedia sounds great! I'm lookign forwards to seeing what the final result is. ;) 
 
I love the new plexpedia theme! Do you mind getting accounts implemented? I am rather anxious to check things out. :)
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
16 hours - 987v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 20:36 GMT
I'M BACK!! YEA!!! Back from spring monthly vacation. Sorry for not being able to tell you I was leaving for vacation. But this sounds really cool! Whatever it is..... Also Aubrey I have been tinkering a bit with Python as my learning language. It's actually quite fun and makes you do some things that are only good habits in other coding languages.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
3 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 22:55 GMT
Hey Aub'z thank you!
* My ancient PMs are cleared up!
* Site pages load quickly on any browser (seemed it was even polluting Safari for use on the rest of the web)
* I swear on my lasers that password thingy really worked more than once.
* I hosted in GTR's incredible Sands of Time map and the text welcomed me to Levitia.
* Haven't been on game today but last night, no one could authenticate user names. I'm on Mac app
* Welome AppleSky and Tigerstorm to modness!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 22,845v
Posted 2010/04/08 - 23:48 GMT
Why thank you, Kruncher. ;)
 
Aubrey, could you possibly fix the incredible laggy performance of the jet in the Sands of Time map? Once the jet climbs to around 1000 alt the controls stick(you can barely roll, even with full agility), and as you progress higher the problem is more pronounced.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 32,756v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 0:08 GMT
I got home and looked at a post and noticed the little post status thing at the top. For a moment I was thinking, "Have I been a mod this whole time and not known it?" Lol, Thanks!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 0:48 GMT
You're welcome!
 
I am coordinating with GTR on the Sands of Time map, and the next version of Mars Explorer should handle it much more gracefully. (No timeframe yet, I am waiting for the next Unity release).
 
You are right Kruncher, the auth server was down last night but I fixed it this morning.
 
I am working dilligently on PlexIPedia Flynn, but it could be a while before anything is really ready to test out :)
 
-Aubrey
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 32,756v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 0:49 GMT
Are there any plans to implement scripting for worlds in the future?
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 1:02 GMT
Short term, no - it simply isn't supported by Unity.
 
Long term, I have huge plans which user creatable scripts form an integral component of :)
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 32,756v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 1:12 GMT
Aww... That's too bad. I guess it will be awhile until we get a version of the Chess World with respawn pieces, then ;)
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 2:40 GMT
Unity's animation system is fully supported by Whirld though - the chess pieces could be sliding around according to predefined patterns right now.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 week - 32,756v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 2:49 GMT
I'll take a look at it. Thanks!
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
5 weeks - 32,767v
Posted 2010/04/09 - 1:13 GMT
That's quite sad :(
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 weeks - 18,838v
Posted 2010/04/16 - 4:53 GMT
Update: long term might not be quite as far out as I had initially visualized.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 3,713v
Posted 2010/04/16 - 17:56 GMT
So what your saying is, I (provided I learn the proper language) will be able to create fully interactive worlds capable of performing a miriad of actions limited only by my imagination and my ability to utilize the software efficiently.  This is exciting news indeed.  When you talk of codeing robots and such, are you including anything that can be given a set of responces based on input/triggers?  I.E. anything from fully autonomous robots to control panels, levers, switches ect.    Also would I able to implement a vehicle of my own on my own world with my own control options and characaturistics? 
 
I have been a player since version-(doesnt exist anymore)  and all this is kinda blowing my mind now.  I am amazed you have made such astounding progress with this game and still desire to go bigger and better. 
 
 
THORN
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 days - 9,168v
Posted 2010/04/16 - 18:09 GMT
To my knowledge, you can already do some of this.
 
You can use animations to make stuff move, and rigidbody to make it possible to move stuff around with the buggy.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
1 day - 3,713v
Posted 2010/04/16 - 19:32 GMT
No what I mean is something more complicated.   A whole new level of game play. 
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 days - 9,168v
Posted 2010/04/16 - 20:22 GMT
Scripted worlds would help me do one thing...
 
I can make spaceship shielding just fine with animations, but I would like to be able to make laser cannons.  By that I mean lasers that do not come from a vehicle.  This would be highly beneficial as a defense feature for a base in Team, Territory War, or CTF modes.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
8 hours - 1,111v
Posted 2010/04/16 - 23:08 GMT
Aubrey, this is off subject,
But i pmd you my world about 3 weeks ago to see if i could get it implemented, and still i have gotten no response.
Can you please answer me here?
Thanks, 
Fluoride
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
2 days - 9,168v
Posted 2010/04/17 - 0:11 GMT
lol, Aubrey rarely replies to PMs, but generally when he does, it is about something being bad/in need of work, so if there is not reply, you have a good chance that it will be implemented eventually.
» Reply to Comment
Re: Assorted Announcements
8 hours - 1,111v
Posted 2010/04/17 - 0:23 GMT
Thanks bagels!


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