Joe Majewski » Web Design

A New Milestone in Development | Fortress RPG

Joe Majewski — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:29:39 +0000

I knew from the very beginning that the Technology section of the game was going to be HUGE, but I had completely underestimated what was in store for me. I was overwhelmed with work. There were nearly a half dozen database tables, several PHP pages, and lots of brainstorming and paper work that I used to compile the finalized list of technologies.

As I’ve previously stated, Arena used an upgrade system where each upgrade type (attack, defense, unit production, etc) was always available, and it doubled in price with each purchase. This worked, but it caused all players to make similar choices when it came to upgrading. Fortress RPG has an entirely new upgrade system, where the components are called Technologies. Upon purchasing a technology, the cost of your next technology increases, regardless of what it is, as the cost of a technology is 100% based upon how many you own. Additionally, new technologies may or may not become available, depending upon what you chose to learn.

My fiancee and I probably spent over 100 hours working on the technologies system, and it was well worth it, as it makes Fortress stand out from most browser-based games of this sort. In addition to that, technologies are fun to learn. After purchasing a technology, it’s fun to see the new technologies that become available. I’m sure that
everyone will be more than happy with this new game mechanic.

I’m proud to announce that Fortress RPG will consist of 100 unique technologies

I will post another update, much like this one, after the next milestone in game development is met. So what’s next on my `to-do` list? First, I plan on making and completing the Buildings section of the game, along with the cron job (a PHP script) that gets executed every 30 minutes to update rankings and income stats, and whatever else needs to be done. This is tentative, so don’t be surprised if I do things in an entirely different order.

Stay tuned! If you’ve got any suggestions, now would be the perfect time to expose them.

(Not to mention that I like getting comments.)

I Promised, and I delivered. Arena 2.0

Joe Majewski — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:26:17 +0000

I’ve talked up so much hype about this new game, “Arena 2.0″, yet I’ve offered nothing to back it up. Talkin’ the talk, but not walkin’ the walk. Anyways, today is a special day; one in which I would like to share with my eager readers some juicy news on this game. For many, I expect that Arena 2.0 has become a myth, a no-show, and I blame myself for that.

Although this game was on hiatus for over a year, I promise to my readers that I have been hard at work on it for at least three months now. My fiance, Kristen, has also offered a large contribution to Arena 2.0 thus far, with great ideas, page design, and artwork.

The purpose of this article is not just to share the progress that we’ve made with the game so far, but also to offer some real details about it. I will include some screen shots, in addition to a surprise announcement which I will save for the end of this post.

Let’s begin with the name of the game. Arena 2.0 doesn’t actually exist. It was simply a tentative title, as I was unsure of whether or not this was going to be a replacement for the current Arena, or run alongside it. My current plans are to focus on Arena 2.0 for a long while, and let the original Arena continue to run, possibly give it a reset, finish the archives, and whatever other maintenance must be done to keep things running smoothly. New mods, perhaps?

For the remainder of this post, I will no longer be referring to the game as Arena 2.0. Instead, I would like to publicly introduce it’s new (and finalized) title, Fortress RPG, or Fortress, for short. Some of you may remember a game that I began secretly working on a few years ago which was also called Fortress, located on NFreak.net.

I never got all that deep into the programming of Fortress for NFreak.net. I got about as far as registration and login, as well as a basic template. I had a lot of ideas for the original Fortress, but since I never followed through with the project, they were never implemented.

Fortunately, the new-and-improved Fortress RPG is much like the Fortress that would have been, except much, much better. The new Fortress is wider in terms of resolution, and has been programmed with an extra two to three years of experience. In that time, I have become a PHP and MySQL connoisseur, and I don’t mean to gloat. Additionally, it is being worked on by both my fiance and I, so there are two talented individuals working on a game that’s going to make Arena look pitiful (and the Arena’s not bad to begin with).

In just a minute, I will be revealing the URL to the Official Fortress RPG game, so I’d like to first begin by sharing the bad news. Fortress RPG is currently in a Closed Beta Testing stage. What this means is that you cannot create an account without a special promotional code. As of this writing, I am the only person on Earth that has access to these codes. I cannot give an exact date as to when the game will graduate to an Open Beta Test, but I have been working almost every day, so I don’t think it will be too much of a wait.

I’m going to be very conservative when it comes to sharing the promotional codes, so don’t get your hopes up, as I really don’t want to disappoint anyone for not receiving one. The farther along the game becomes, the more promo codes I will be willing to give away.

Currently, the game is at least 40% complete. It’s always difficult to predict completion percents and release dates; personally, I am notoriously bad at it, so I don’t even bother anymore, at least not until the game is within a week of being launched. Please understand that a large portion of the game is the template, header, footer, and database. Thus, even before a game has any sort of identifiable content, it may be more than a quarter finished.

Not that Fortress RPG lacks content. Most of the help and FAQ pages have been written, along with most of the pages that don’t require the visitor to be logged in. So for someone that’s viewing the site for the first time, Fortress RPG, on a visual level, looks complete.

Upon logging into the game, however, you will see the navigation bar more than double in size, and you will be overwhelmed by the number of features that this game is going to have. Most of them haven’t been started yet, but to be honest, it doesn’t take me very long to write a PHP page to do whatever it is that I need it to do. The reason that these pages haven’t been completed yet is because I have been spending the majority of my time working on the database for the game.

For the techies, or anyone else who happens to know anything about MySQL, I currently have twelve tables created, with many more that are on my to-do list. The largest part of this project is a page that’s labeled Technologies. The Arena had an Upgrade page where the cost of an upgrade would double after each purchase, and all types of upgrades were available from the start.

Fortress RPG has an upgrade system that’s entirely different, which allows each player to shape their army any way they like. Rather than upgrades, technologies will take there place. These technologies are in a tree format, so that in order to get “Technology B”, you must first learn “Technology A”.

There’s a HUGE amount of technologies that fill this tree, so the game would have to run for quite some time before someone unlocked all technologies. I have all intentions of fully supporting this game on a daily basis, and adding new content between each age.

Fortress RPG Control Panel

Since the majority of you will not be receiving promo codes to register to the game, I will provide a screen shot of what the Control Panel looks like so you get an idea of what to expect. It’s better than nothing, right? Trust me, Fortress RPG is no hoax; expect it to be your home page as soon as it’s released, because I guarantee that after five minutes of playing you will not want to stop.

Oh, and I almost forgot to provide you with the link to the game, which wouldn’t have been too difficult to figure out given the pattern that I’ve used for over five years for naming and linking applications. At long last…

Fortress RPG

Submitting Your Blog to Technorati

Joe Majewski — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 05:16:37 +0000

Technorati is one of the Internet’s largest search engines for blogs, with over 100 million distinct blogs indexed as of this writing. As a webmaster, you should find yourself regularly promoting your site in a variety of ways.

For example, some of the first few things that I do upon launching a new website include getting indexed with Google and Yahoo, signing up for tools such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, and posting in forums with my domain name linked in my signature.

While producing unique content that people find useful is the most important thing that you can do as a webmaster, you must also work equally hard outside of your password-protected Admin panel. Neglecting to keep up with the newest Internet trends will reflect poorly upon your website in the long run. HTML standards are always being modified, and in order to stay in the race it would be to your benefit to understand how the web works.

This entire process can simply be referred to as search engine optimization (SEO); I mention this concept a lot on my blog, as I find it to be the most important set of standards and practices that can and will bring good fortune to a dedicated webmaster.

In my own words, search engine optimization is the effort put forth to enhance your source code and provide web crawlers with the required data to optimize your website’s reach in order to achieve the highest possible ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for any given keyword or phrase.

Google uses it’s trademarked Googlebot to crawl the web. Although Googlebot is a brilliant piece of work, it is still a bot, and it still follows step by step instructions much like every other program written in the past century.

When first learning how to make a website, the idea of sharing information with Googlebot will probably not come to mind for most individuals. Instead, you write some HTML, view the page in a web browser, and make a judgment based on how nice it looks. This is certainly a crude interpretation, but my point is that new web developers tend to think about how their visitors view the site, without realizing that a web crawler’s view of the site may be completely different.

With that said, I have already written a slew of articles on search engine optimization. If you are curious, I strongly urge you to read on, as you may find yourself making a few minor adjustments to your website’s layout that cause your traffic to double. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Today I’m submitting this website to Technorati, one of the world’s largest search engines for blogs. In order to prove that I’m the owner of this blog, I need to verify with the following code: 3VNDRN8GG855

The deed is done. It’s out of my hands now, and into the hands of the Technorati staff. In due time, I may or may not be indexed within their pages. Only time will tell. There’s an endless amount of things you can do to promote your own blog, and today I took the Technorati approach.

Surprise! Arena 2.0 is in Development

Joe Majewski — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:22:12 +0000

Here’s to a new project in the works, which many are sure to be excited about. I can’t reveal too much information right now, but this installment will be written from the ground up and will be very different from the Arena that many readers are familiar with.

Click to Enlarge

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I’m will not be the sole creator of this game. It is being designed by Jon Hemstreet, a co-worker of mine, and programmed by yours truly. I will provide much more information in the coming weeks as things develop, but I wanted to drop this bomb to remind you that Arena is NOT over.

Questions, comments, inquiries? Leave a comment below.

How to Protect Your WordPress Blog from Spam

Joe Majewski — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:41:46 +0000

If your blog doesn’t authenticate new comments by using a CAPTCHA test, then it shouldn’t be long before you begin receiving a steady amount of spam each and every day with your WordPress blog.

Akismet is a plug-in that comes standard with your WordPress installation, and it does a great job of identifying your spam comments. It’s safe to allow your spam inbox to grow to enormous sizes, as it doesn’t take up very much database space, and you never know if you’ll ever decide to manually search through them for legitimate comments.

Personally, I try to delete new spam as soon as I receive it. There has been occasions where Akismet has falsely accused a comment of mine to be spam, and it’s important to me that all legitimate comments posted get displayed.

Make sure your WordPress settings force you to personally accept comments before allowing them to appear on your website. I would also recommend that you allow WordPress to automatically accept comments made from IP addresses with previously accepted comments. It’s generally safe to assume that a single IP won’t spam you after posting a legitimate comment. Be aware, however, that many spam posts are designed to look “real”, so don’t let anything fool you.

The reason that spam comments are harmful to your blog is due to the links that they attempt to post, and the keywords that they throw on your pages. If enough spam comments get permitted, Google may suspect your website to be spam itself, and this could result in your domain name being sandboxed, or permanent PageRank 0 for all pages, making it very difficult to receive traffic.

Spam comments oftentimes contain many hyperlinks to other websites, which causes your PageRank to be stolen and passed on to the domains being linked to. This could be harmful for your blog in the long run, and it doesn’t appear professional to your visitors that are reading spam comments below your real content.

By whatever means necessary, keep spam comments off of your blog. You can let Akismet do most of the work, but realize the devastation that spam can cause. Be safe.