Well, seeing as the last post I made here was 6 weeks ago, I dare say I'm overdue for an official project status update. I probably should have for another 4 replies or so, so that this would at the top of a new page. Nevertheless, here are the current list of features.
What already works:- Listing/delisting the server
- Movement and shooting of clients
- Normal chatting
- Downloading of levels and tilesets
What is buggy/still in progress:- Collision detection when shooting
- Capturing the flag
- Object pickups
Currently codenamed
azure moon, the official name is still not being made known yet. The official scripting language to be used with this project is Lua. Support for DLL plugin has been considered, but will probably not be added until the later stages.
The scripting language, for maximum flexibility, has been designed to intercept events, such as onRoast, onChat, onJoin, onCapture. As such, Lua was chosen because it will be easy for beginners to pick up. Ideally, each gamemode would run as its own .lua file.
Commands will act as functions, and can be handled globally or locally. Examples of the former are "/kick", "/n", or "/instagib on". These are functions which, when you call, will be handled internally by the server so you don't really need to know how they work. You can also define your own function, such as defining "/spaztagib" to be "player.health = 1; if player.character = jazz then kick player". (That was pseudocode though, and doesn't reflect what Lua actually looks like).
The final issue is, as much as I'd like to make this project open source, plenty of obstacles have popped up along the way making the opensourceness of this project a very controversial decision. Said discussion is still being held by the board of directors. As at time of publishing this project is still closed source.
Finally, time for the Q&A:- The dedicated server will run entirely on console. For those who have used console, this decision will be an easy one to support since it calls for much more effective and efficient means of modifying the server. If you really need a GUI, there might be a possibility of creating one from the script.
- Minimizing the console to the system tray is trivial, and doesn't require a plugin. However, it could be modified with the scripting language.
- I really never intended this to work with PHP or Flash. However, the plugin system is flexible. If you could get them to communicate with the server by means of DLL or otherwise, then be my guest.