Hey folks,
We know you haven’t heard from us in a minute, but rest assured that we’re working up a geek sweat coding like bats out of hell. We felt bad about staying silent for so long, so here’s a screenshot to show you some stuff we’re working on.
We’re getting there guys!
(Any Mac users out there? We have a new Mac version available for testing!)
-Ron
Ron here, just wanting to fill you guys in with where things are right now. First off, thanks to our alpha testers for helping us out and bearing with us. It’s rarely fun to use half-built software, but you guys were a huge help with figuring out how to get everyone logged into the game. That was probably the most frustrating part — just trying to get everyone successfully logged into the game world. While there are still a few kinks left in that process, for the most part people have been able to log into the game world just fine.
But what do you do after you get in the game world?
Well, currently not much. Or at least not in the version you guys are playing at home 
Our programmers are hard at work on the next build — 0.3.0a — which will feature core set of the game’s functionality. In this build, you’ll get to perform the same daily tasks you did in the web game — like pitch deals to artists, send messages to players, sell merchandise, buy ads — but in a completely new environment. Plus, you’ll find there is a good amount of new functionality not even present in the web game. 0.3.0a is a big step from the last version you’ve played, so stay tuned as we keep you informed on its release.
“But when’s the release date going to be?”
We know this is the main question people have, and while the initial account login problems set us back a few weeks, we’re overall still on track for having a public and playable version for January 2009. While I still cannot give any concrete dates as of the moment, here’s the latest timeline I have:
by end of November 2008 — finish game functionality for build 0.3.0.a
by end of December 2008 — launch new web version
by end of January 2009 — initial public release of Fantasy Hip Hop RPG
If things change (as they tend to do), we’ll let you know and post information up here. As for our testers, continue sending us your debug.log files via email if you still experience crashes or cannot log in. We thrive on those log files, and without them we’re clueless as to how to fix the code.
There’s your technical update.
Yours truly,
Ron
Build 0.2.7a is available. Make sure to remove your old data folder and use the new one prior to running the application. If you encountered a crash before when running the game, you most likely will with this version too, except this time it will take notes of what’s happening. We need you to run this copy, and send us via email your debug.log files as soon as possible.
We would like to have all these issues squared away so that by our 0.3.0 release, we can all consistently connect and meet up in the game world.
Here are a few details about the build:
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ADDITIONS:
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-Program now generates its own log file to keep track of where something might go wrong. Look for the file “debug.log” and send it in to us if your game crashes.
-Improved HUD functionality (still incomplete)
-Object selecting with mouse
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Download link: http://www.fantasyhiphop.com/downloads.php
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We have lots of cool features and activities to introduce you to in FHH RPG, though unfortunately getting a lot of you logged in has been a real problem. Seeing that without solving this problem first all the other stuff doesn’t matter, we really need to get this problem solved, and quickly.
It’s one of those problems that occurs on some people’s computers, but not on others. For example, most of the Mac builds don’t have this problem, though occasionally some do.
The worst though is that when it *does* crash on your end, we have no way of knowing what happened, where the problem was, or anything unless you tell us somehow (and of course we don’t expect you to tell us “duhhh, there’s a null pointer on line 243 of getWorldInfo()”.
So in order to make debugging this game go a lot faster, we’ve done two changes to the latest build:
1) It generates a “debug.log” file that keeps track of everything happening, and should help us figure out how it crashed.
2) It runs in windowed mode instead of full-screen so that it doesn’t lock up your whole computer if it freezes. We’ll make it full-screen again when the game is more stable.
So now what you have to do is stay tuned for build 0.2.7a, download & run it, then send us the debug.log file when you’re done.
Hopefully this gets us past this annoying bug, and gets you back in the game!
-Ron
Hey guys,
So the next build is available, and we’ll have another one in the pipeline shortly. As you know, we’re trying to crack in this “login crash” bug. It’s been hard to track because its not happening consistently when we test it. Sometimes it will crash, but then we run the app again it will log in fine. We need you to download the build, and try this out for yourself. Let us know how far in the log in process you get. Hopefully you make it through the login process and into the actual game, but if you do not, we need to know where things went wrong.
Once we get this fixed, you’ll actually be able to check out the other features in the game world. We just gotta get over this hump first.
Thanks for your patience guys,
Ron
We should have a fix for the “Syncing uPhone” bug in the next build. Stay tuned.
The latest build, 0.2.3a, is available for Windows and Intel Macs on the Download page (PowerPC build available later tonight).
Fixes:
*You can now choose to log out a stale session if your game crashed while you were logged in
*Character movement
The next build is here! Here’s the scoop:
FIXES SINCE LAST BUILD:
-login was previously crashing if you didn’t have any artists/albums in the new league. This should be taken care of now
-Vertical movement now possible (though it uses the same animation frames for walking left/right)
-You can now enter a new room by pressing the action button (Spacebar). This means that if you walk in front of certain doors, you can try pressing spacebar to see if it will transition you to a new location. This is an improvement over it just sweeping you away automatically
KNOWN ISSUES:
-no new known issues. see last update
We have a Downloads page set up where you can download the latest builds of the game. It’s password-protected, and we will email the insiders the password. We ask that you do *not* share this password, and do *not* post it in any comments. We really need you to respect this guys, as we’re trying to fix the issues with the game before leaking it to the public. Please respect this for the sake of the game, and for the sake of the hundreds of hours that the developers have poured into making the game. If we find that someone is leaking the passwords (we know who we’ve sent them to), then we’ll unfortunately have to disable your account (so c’mon guys, just work with us! )
The download link is http://www.fantasyhiphop.com/downloads.php . Passwords will be emailed to you shortly.
Insiders, I have good news for you —
The engineers have finally put forth Mac + Windows executables for you to download. They’re still processing the list of testers though, so you may have to wait until they get to your name for you to be able to log in. Nonetheless, there is a build available! While we’re still getting all the beta testers processed, builds will be emailed out to you on a rolling basis. Eventually this will become quicker, but we’re still getting everyone’s accounts activated.
Since this is the first build that you guys will be testing, we have to establish what the routine is for beta testing.
*Each release we give you (known as a “build”) is the latest version of the game. Each build has its own version number (this one is 0.2.1a), and we use this info to track which version you are using while testing
*With each build we will make a blog post mentioning the following things:
“Known Issues”: This is when we let you know all the stuff that we “know” doesn’t work (and there’s a lot of it!). Pay attention to this list, as you will most likely notice this while you play. For stuff that is known, there is no need to report it to us, or tell us about it — we already know about it!
“Fixed Issues”: This is a list of things that we’ve fixed since the last build. You want to go through these things and actually confirm that they are indeed fixed, and hit us up with comments up here if they’re not fixed.
So without further adieu, let’s move on to this builds “Known Issues”
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KNOWN ISSUES
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*The first time you launch the game, it downloads data files it needs from our servers. Things can sometimes go wrong here. We’re working on solidifying this process.
*Vertical movement is disabled. Character moves only left and right.
*All characters look identical. This is intentional and will change later.
*uPhone apps are totally bogus. These aren’t meant to be used right now. You can fool around with the uPhone apps to ensure that everything renders fine, and that they scroll smoothly, but don’t expect to be calling Jay-Z up on them…..(yet!)
*Throughout the various locations there are “hotspots”. Hotspots will transport you to a new location. We actively change the hotspots (even while you are playing) and right now they are very glitchy. It is quite possible to end up in a room and be unable to get out. All we can say is “sorry” and that we’re working on it.
*You might experience a small “pause” periodically. We are fixing this issue.
*You need to actually click the “Exit” button or press Ctrl-Q to quit. Otherwise, you’ll generate a stale session and be unable to log back in again.
*Currently no music is playing. We will have user-submitted music playing in the future.
*There is a glitch with the uPhone where sometimes it gets stuck halfway on the screen and you cannot move it. We’re working on it.
*All the buttons for doing label-specific stuff are disabled. Hence, you cannot do very much (you did know you were beta testing though, right?) We’ll be updating these in future builds.
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We won’t bore you with too many more details now, but get used to the user interface, and navigating the environment, and get ready for the new updates.
Thanks for being patient guys
-Ron
(on behalf of Dave & the Tech Staff)