music

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Temeraire
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music

Post by Temeraire »

bzflag is very good, but it definitely needs two things:
one is some music, just having occasional sounds isn't
that fun. two is level ups and upgrades. all the best payable
games on the net have level ups, and upgrades and powerups,
u no, a goal, and maybe some health too.


thank you for listening to me
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JeffM
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Post by JeffM »

Music has been discussed in the past. our current sound system does not support music, and finding open source music that everyone likes is not easy. But it could be something we get to in the future, it's just not a high priority.

The various superflags are our versions of powerups. By design BZFlag is meant to have simple gameplay so it wont' ever have levels or classes or anything more complex. This is simply a design choice.

Because the game is open source other developers are more then welcome to take the code for bzflag and make a more complex derived game that includes these features, but it is not something we wish to put into the basic game.
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Post by ConcienceClearance »

another advantage of the no music approach is that you can play your own music underneath, although, you'll need a pretty long playlist :-)
F687/s
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Post by F687/s »

1. I know there are some ways to manipulate iTunes via keyboard shortcuts, so you can play music while you frag. (You can search around for your preferred media player if you like. Google is your friend!)

2. One of the things that I like about BZFlag is that there is no leveling up. If you want, you can go and challenge the best player around 1vs1, and there will be no advantage (other than skill) that he has over you. The closest thing there is is flags, and those can come and go. It's all about skill (just like chess, go, and many other games)
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Post by ducktape »

I've always thought ranks would be cool.. i dont know how the ranking system would work tho.. i haven't given it that much thought.
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Re: music

Post by lol_u died »

Temeraire wrote:bzflag is very good, but it definitely needs two things:
one is some music, just having occasional sounds isn't
that fun. two is level ups and upgrades. all the best payable
games on the net have level ups, and upgrades and powerups,
u no, a goal, and maybe some health too.


thank you for listening to me
Adding music wouldn't be such a good idea for bzflag.... if your using Windows Media Player on a pc & you have a keyboard that has like a PLay, pause, and next and back buttons. You can use those buttons to control your music. That's what I do.... and you can do the same procedures for a MAC for linux I dont know.
lol_u died

Post by lol_u died »

ducktape wrote:I've always thought ranks would be cool.. i dont know how the ranking system would work tho.. i haven't given it that much thought.
This subject has already been discussed and how it works.

http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t ... ight=ranks
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Post by Longhair »

Adding music wouldn't be such a good idea for bzflag.... if your using Windows Media Player on a pc & you have a keyboard that has like a PLay, pause, and next and back buttons. You can use those buttons to control your music. That's what I do.... and you can do the same procedures for a MAC for linux I dont know.
Linux users wouldn't touch Windows Media Player with a 10 foot pole, but yeah, same idea.
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Post by ducktape »

lol_u died wrote:
ducktape wrote:I've always thought ranks would be cool.. i dont know how the ranking system would work tho.. i haven't given it that much thought.
This subject has already been discussed and how it works.

http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?t ... ight=ranks
I'm not talking about the BZBB ranks. i'm talking about "in game" ranks.
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F687/s
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Post by F687/s »

About "in game" ranks:

<obvious>
As far as I know, there is no implementation of ranks that can be accessed in-game. I've tried to find a way to get a player's (forum) rank from a script, but players are stored by ID, and there isn't a universal way to extract a player's ID from their name. Even so, forum ranks don't mean anything, and the boatload of PFCs on the forums would dilute their value.

One of the most current ways of gauging one's skill level is the strength index, found on both m.b.o and strayer's bzstats. However, this is incredibly easy to skew using bots. And even so, a dynamic strength index (such as strayer's) can change depending on your preferred servers. To illustrate my point, go to one of sigonasr2's Party TIME maps and watch your strength index plummet.

Aside from "skill" ranks, ideas have floated around about some sort of a karma system, which ranks the friendliness of players. However, while this is nice in theory, there is no working implementation of this as of yet. You can read more about this idea here.
</obvious>

The only problem is, ranks are irrelevant for this game. After a few rounds against a person, it is kinda easy to pick up whether that person is better or worse than you. And the techniques that you use to spank one vet can be harmless to another (even though they may have the same "rank"). Add to that the number of unregistered players and players with alternate callsigns, and the information can get quite messy over time. The Right Way To Do It (if you're going to Do It at all) is to set up a private rank system, one that is not global to everyone (an example being the 1vs1 rankings). That way, you can get information that is relevant.
Last edited by F687/s on Tue Jun 17, 2008 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by silver surfer »

I find music in video games nerdy... ( my opinion ) unless the maker of a map wants to add some like music to there map like some rock rap or somethin... if possible...

ranks and upgrades have been talked about in the past ( me ) and people thought that people having advantages in the game isnt fair... but playing a game that has the same or less amount of skill level comes boring to me i wanted a challenge but...


im sure its possible to both those things.... but thats not my choice

and if those ever happened it would have to be in a very later version... maybe like a year from now minimum... if they want to add some challenge to this game...
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Quantum Tank
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Re: music

Post by Quantum Tank »

Temeraire wrote:bzflag is very good, but it definitely needs two things:
one is some music, just having occasional sounds isn't
that fun. two is level ups and upgrades. all the best payable
games on the net have level ups, and upgrades and powerups,
u no, a goal, and maybe some health too.


thank you for listening to me
1: Just put on your own... Bzflag is OPEN SOURCE, so in case you didn't know that means its free, and if you want copyrighted music in it you'll have to pay for it.

2: Obviously you haven't been playing for very long... flags are powerups, that pretty simple.

3: There will NEVER be health outside of the shield flag, it just makes the game too complicated. This has been discussed plenty of times before, so next time research a bit before you make a new topic (and such a wonderfully typed one too...).

Hope that cleared things up.
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Re: music

Post by blast »

Quantum Tank wrote:1: Just put on your own... Bzflag is OPEN SOURCE, so in case you didn't know that means its free, and if you want copyrighted music in it you'll have to pay for it.
Just having copyright doesn't imply it has to be paid for. For instance, BZFlag itself is copyrighted, but at the same time, free, and open-source. There are sources of music that have more open licenses, and I even recall at one point someone on the IRC channel mentioned that they would be willing to license some music for BZFlag. So basically, copyright doesn't mean that we can't include music. Licenses do. Remember that copyright is not a license.
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Post by Yojimbo »

silver surfer wrote:ranks and upgrades have been talked about in the past ( me ) and people thought that people having advantages in the game isnt fair... but playing a game that has the same or less amount of skill level comes boring to me i wanted a challenge but...
Well, there is the handicap system that could be switched on for a game; and there the ranking system is pretty much of the reverse of what I think the thread is discussing -- beginners/low ranks get an advantage, the higher ranks are effectively penalised to keep things fair :-)
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