BZFlag Robots

It was a holiday today so I goofed off playing solo matches on BZFlag. I enjoy the game but I stink at it, so I need to practice regularly. It's embarrassing that I get my butt kicked by the crappy robots in the solo game.

Between games I poked around the web and stumbled upon a Python version of the bzfquery.pl tool, a command line utility that displays information about the server, teams, and players. bzfquery.py is included in the BZFlag source but the Debian package only includes the Perl version.

bzfquery.py has a couple of improvements. First, it prints the correct content type if it detects that it was called via CGI. Handy if you need a quick and dirty way to display the server status as a web page. Second, bzfquery.py cab be used as a module by other Python programs, enabling them to communicate with the server without dealing with the protocol directly. While the module is very useful for getting basic information such as the player scores, the module doesn't include code for more complex tasks like writing a robot tank in Python.

But wait! There's more! BZFlag 3.0 will have a proper robot API and Python will be one of the supported languages. I think I'll write a robot that plays worse than I do!

BZFlag Bust! Again!

I ran the 2011 New Year's Day BZFlag game again. It was a bust! Again!

I invited more people by adding my nephews in the list and still only one person, my nephew Mark, decided to try it. I extended the time the server would be available to well over 48 hours, and it didn't help.

Mark and I only played against each other once because I forgot one valuable lesson: set a fixed game time. This helped in the 2010 game which did attract two people, although one of them played for less than half an hour. The game really needs a minimum of three players.

Anyway, it doesn't bother me that nobody has any time for the game. It's my personal New Year's Day tradition and it's just a bonus if family and friends join the fun. However, it would help if I was better organized.

I'm off to have a final bash before I shut down the server. ^_^

BZFlag Results

The BZFlag game today needed more players. Three people showed up but considering I invited thirteen, it really wasn't a great turnout. Paul and I started shortly after 3pm and played for two hours before Al joined the game. He only played for maybe 15 minutes before Real Life called him away again. By the that time, both Paul and I were burned out so we packed it in for the day.

Paul and I were using cat and mouse tactics which flat out wouldn't work if we had more players in the melee. With a small number of players, using the automatic team assignment algorithm isn't the best plan. When Al joined he was assigned to my team since I was weaker. Problem was that I wasn't that much worst the Paul, so the balance was way off in a two against one battle. If we had continued playing, it would have been better for Al to manually select his team. Just another thing to consider when I setup the next game, assuming there will be one.

I would rate today's game moderately successful. It was fun but it could have been better.

3D Woes

It looks like my plans for a New Year's Day BZFlag game are in trouble. I configured the server a few days ago and it works fine, no problems there. The client side is a different story. The client is crashing hard, like it takes down the whole computer. I can't even login remotely.

Since I don't run 3D applications very often, the problem may be BZFlag, a kernel problem, a library bug, or a zillion other things. And, since is is a hard crash, there's nothing running that can write a log message or any sort of a clue. I hate it when software gets this complicated.

Unless I can figure this out soon, I guess the game is off. Sniff. Wipes a tear.

BZFlag Again

I'm hoping to organize a BZFlag game for my friends on New Year's Day, similar to what I tried last time. The emphasis will be on "organizing" with an actual game time as opposed to just hoping people join in at the same time. That failed miserably which in hindsight should have been obvious. Everybody actually connected at least once but just never while some else was around. So everyone was interested but found they had nothing to do. Hopefully it will work out better this time.

BZFlag

On New Year's day I setup a BZFlag server and invited a few friends to have some fun. Unfortunately, we always seemed to miss each other so it was bust. I was hoping that random chance would be enough but it was not. Next time I'll have to have a set time for the game to begin. I should also have told them about the "-solo n" argument on the client, which creates "n" number of robot players so you have something to shoot at if no one else is around. This would have kept players interested and increased the chances of people connecting at the same time.