Newsletter #53 - Pit Glitch Fixed

News

No news to report this week.

From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

The file I/O system will provide classes for I/O operations on various file formats. For example, there will be a class that handles reading/writing from/to an INI file. This class will make use of a basic file I/O object that handles the details of reading and writing bytes from/to the file. The INI handler doesn't care where the data is, so it is possible for data to be in memory, on disk, or even on another computer.

The system will also support archive formats, allowing multiple files to be stored in the same file. This will also allow a more advanced archive system, similar to a file system, which has directories and file names. The entire archive could be encrypted, as well as individual files within it.

If all game-data is stored in an archive, a game could (in theory) consist of only an executable and the data file. However, there is a disadvantage to doing this. As an example, if a particular API to decode an audio file permits no way to give it the data directly rather than a filename, the audio file must reside in the normal file system. You could get around this by unpacking the audio files into the file system when the game starts, and then deleting those files when the game ends, but then you run the risk of cluttering these files on the user's hard drive in the event of a crash, not to mention longer load/shutdown times.

Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #11

(Click to enlarge)

Community Spotlight
Written by Jay, Dead9000, and Invisible

This passed week, InvisibleMan made some improvements to the SAO server, and Acaceol has fixed various things in HAL (the SAO chat/moderator bot). The change to the server got rid of a bug known to the community as the "pit glitch" (RIP). A couple problems with the banning system were fixed, and various small things were done to the moderator commands. The swearing filter has also been upgraded, and will now block the message and issue a private warning. Hopefully this encourages players to not swear. As far as HAL is concerned, some changed were made to moderator commands, moderator-only messages are no longer sent to the non-mod channel, and message colors now reflect the ones in-game.

It has only been about 6 months since he started, and yet he rose to heights most reach in a year if not more. He surpassed players in the Top 10 weekly, sometimes even daily, without breaking a sweat. I speak of Toraneko of course, and this week he achieved level 52 making him rank 2nd on the Unofficial Top 10 list.

An SAO mod archive has been made recently by a player named Zecronious. This site features news about up-and-coming mods, a list of mods, the option of uploading your mod to the website, as well as Ace's "Automatic Mod Installer".