Topics

I have created a BZUniverse steam group! Because I would rather invite people from BZU to fill slots in my public games than open things up wide open to the public most days. And others here may feel the same way.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bzuniverse

Invite only, post here with enough information for me to find you on steam for an invite. Like, oh, a link to your steam ID page.

Alternatively, PM me, if for some reason you don't want to post things publicly.

Officers can also hand out invites, if you want to contact them instead. Current officers:

OvermindDL1, Sonic

I have taken the XMPP (jabber) server I already run and added BZUniverse to it.

Your username is your forum username @bzuniverse.com. For those with invalid characters in their forum usernames please ask an administrator (OTHER THAN ME) to change your username for you. Your password is your forum password. (All attempts to change password via XMPP will fail.)

If someone else wants to pop in here and describe any of this in more detail, like how to use it, feel free.

Just for a basic category tree, layout for games, and layout for mods, in a naming sense.

Questions? Comments? Arguments? Desire to call me an idiot?

...

No, wait, that last one is probably a flame, and belongs in a different forum. Unless it is an attempt at being constructive here, anyway.

Proposed Category tree:
Battlezone I
Battlezone II
Modding
Mods
-BZ1 Mods
-BZ2 Mods
--1.2 Mods
--1.3 Mods
Patches
Utilities
Tutorials

Proposed tree for game pages (BZ1, BZ2), based on subpages (Game/subpage):
/Storyline
/<race>
/<race>/Units
/<race>/Units/<unit> - If this level of detail is desired
/Patches (Updates?)
/Patches/<patch> - To provide more details about the patch, if desired

Proposed Tree for mod pages, based on subpages (modname/subpage):
(only for mods where there is enough information to make subpages)
/<race> - 1 for each race, including stock races for history/changes
/<race>/Units
/<race>/Units/<unit> - If this level of detail is desired
/Storyline
/Missions - If applicable
/Missions/<mission name> - If desired
/Features - Things the mod provides that are not provided by stock game?

Since nobody else is coming up with anything of use, some attempt at a useful bit of discussion, especially as all the edits so far are basically in the user namespace.

How do people want to answer the following questions.

1 - Naming conventions - The main namespace has subpages enabled, and if desired other namespaces can be added. For example, would it be beneficial to have a "Mods" or "Modding" namespace? Note that you can limit a search by namespace, unlike a category.
2 - Which leads us to Categories - What kinds of things should be put in categories? What categories should be created? What categories should NEVER be created?
3 - Templates - What kinds of templates do we want? Perhaps we should have some of the templates that make thing easy to find, like pages that should probably be deleted or that need more content. On the other hand, templates may be good for subpages, such as when something has a 1.0, a 1.1, a 1.2, and a 1.3 version, and it would be beneficial to have a template to handle all of that linking. BTW, I can help make such a template that is page inspecific.

That should be enough for now.

Edit: You know what? Until some of this stuff is decided, no edit rights for anyone. Not even sysops.

I am not going to force the sysops to keep this up to date, but I will start it off. It is a list of pages that are protected, and why. Topic is locked so that only moderators and such can add to it.

Main Page - Because the homepage should NOT be easily vandalized.

Or, rather, the root site itself. It is up, it is open to new members, and only members can make changes.

Have fun.

I am not going to babysit it indefinitely. On the other hand, nobody to speak of is around to babysit it.

Thus, I want volunteers.

And, because I can, I am going to play favorites. People I don't like don't get in. People I do, do. Mainly because if I like you I feel I can trust you.

The following people can apply and get rights as soon as they tell me their usernames!

GSH, OvermindDL1, Red Devil, Sonic (no, wait, he already HAS sysop rights), Ken Miller, Avatar, Natty..........yea, that does it for an initial list. They only get rights if they WANT rights, though.

Logos, Skins, Interwiki Link Requests, Namespace Requests, can be made to me. Abuse issues also to me for now.

If 20 people ask for one, I will be willing to entertain a second wiki, modding.bzuniverse.com, for modding details. Or you could just jam it as a namespace in the current wiki, after asking for said namespace.

Today I got up, started some laundry, went to visit my insurance agent about canceling my policy with them due to switching insurance companies. They haven't been around for a couple of weeks now, and were impossible to work with for a month before that.

They weren't there. I had to call their parent company to get a human.

I come home, move some laundry around, make some code changes in MM5 to hopefully get BZ2 to run longer when it runs it (haven't seen the issue myself). For some reason I find coding relaxing. Decide to test the changes by running BZ2. Hell, why not play an actual game, I have time.

I start up a MPI on the latest public beta. No password, anyone can join, firewall should let people in. Start beating up on the CPU, but not too much, I want to go for an hour or so at least to make sure things are stable.

Ten minutes into the game someone joins. Named "playisdf". No clue who they are at this point. I wasn't playing as "CmptrWz" so I don't know if they knew who I was, doubt they did.

They ask if they can join me. That was fine. I say yes. They come in.

They ask for a Sabre. I happen to have one, I give them it.

Then they kill me, call me a n00b, and tell me to give them command. I kick them.

A moment later they come back in, apologize, and get back into the game. No sooner do I hop out of my scout to change settings in the recycler do they kill me again.

I ban them.

A few minutes later my firewall tells me that they are portscanning me. They find a few fake processes I keep running just for people who do so, and attempt to get into them. Fail, they are fakes after all, but I have a nice log of all the attacks they tried.

I resume playing, figuring I will look into it later. Being pissed I am doing great and horribly at the same time. Good at blowing stuff up, not so good at base management.

Someone else comes in, this time with an actual name. Which I am withholding. They ask if they can join me. I say yes. They come in and join me. Not longer after they ask if they can have command, I politely decline. So they kill me. I have had enough of this, I ban them too.

Not long after that I have to take care of something else, so I quit. Later, looking at things here on BZU and in my firewall logs both people appear to have most likely been the same person. Who emailed ME with my own IP saying that if I am registered on BZU I should ban myself.

I have opted not to ban them from BZU, however. They probably won't care anyway. But if people in the community are pulling crap like this, well, I don't want to be in it anymore. Every time I try to play BZ2 I like the community less and less.

BZU is now in "reply only" mode, with one exception. Registrations are no longer moderated, they are outright disabled. In the near future I will decide if BZU should go to being a static site, or just go away.

* CmptrWz takes the easy way out

See this thread for more information!

I am being nice.

When PB4 comes out (or when I feel like it, whichever comes first) I will begin working on what will likely be one of the LAST versions of MM5.

I have my own ideas as to what should be done. If you have any issues or ideas yourself, feel free to post them here (AND ONLY HERE, thank you very much, unless you are on the Private Beta team and it is only an issue with the private beta. Then post a thread there.)

I will evaluate each issue, even consider issues with it running in WINE if you tell me what happens, and decide what to focus on.

Current features list is "who knows" as I haven't figured out what I DID finish writing before I gave up on the moving target that is 1.3.

Before I begin, note that this topic is locked. If you want to argue any of this, take it to the "Talk to the Management" board.

Now then, a few minutes ago while I was making another post my phone rang. When I answered I discovered it was one of the support staff for the company I get this nice web server from.

They told me that there was a problem with this site, gave me a topic number, and told me that they had recieved a request that the second post have the link contained within it removed. I have removed the entire topic instead, and given a week long posting ban to the person who posted the link in question.

I cannot say who exactly requested that the link be removed, only that my host asked me to remove it in turn. I can say that links to downloads of software, even old software, that are not officially in the public domain or that have been released freely by their copyright holders cannot be posted here.

If people insist on posting such links they will be banned. If enough people are banned, or it becomes too much of a hassle, I will just close the site.

Congratulations to Feared_1 and Total Oblivion Omnis for their promotions to Global Moderator status.

Congratulations to Sonic and Red Devil for their promotion to Pseduo-Admin status.

Yes, I said Pseudo. Most administrative rights, including approving people, banning people, powers akin to global moderators, but none of the "actual board settings" stuff for the time being.

Also, thanks in part to a couple of sizable BZScrap donations, I am in a good mood. Drunken Scavengers (10 posts) and up can now select server stored avatars. Sober Scavengers (20 posts) and up can upload a static image to the site. Drunken Constructors (30 posts) and up can now select remotely stored avatars.

1.3 patch board members, global mods, admins, and pseduo-admins are exempt from the post requirements.

Signatures are still turned off, though.

If you can read this you are talking to the new server.

I removed more then I said, except I left all the 1.3 stuff. If you don't like it, deal.

Side note: If it weren't for the 1.3 stuff, you wouldn't be seeing even this much.

I am also now accepting applications, via PM, for Moderation positions for the remaining boards.

Those active and willing to administrate, that ARE ALREADY ON THE 1.3 TEAM, may also PM me.

I have to trust you for what you are asking for rights to do before I give you the rights, though.