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All new forum accounts now have a private message: 12/31/2008
Alpha test site last updated: 12/31/2008
Imagine starring in your favorite TV series, movies, soap operas, and books with your real-life friends. Relive the triumphs and tribulations of anyone from celebrities to the people closest to you including yourself. Affect your avatar while playing the diverse mini-games created by the community. Help mold the world into a utopia or dystopia (with you at the top of course) as singularity approaches. You can make it all happen right here.
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ROUND ONE ALPHA
Welcome to round one alpha, and thanks for your forum comments. Please feel free to continue commenting on the forum during the alpha – there is no non-disclosure agreement. Join in whenever or if you feel like it.
For the alpha, you can create or delete as many accounts as you wish. Alpha accounts are not stable and they may be deleted if necessary – create a new account if that happens. The application is currently slow since the application is on a bare-minimum hosting account – please be patient.
Round one is mostly to demonstrate that this game is not vaporware. For round one alpha testing, only the lightweight version will be ready and no multiplayer features will be available yet.
If needed, rest until your morale is up so it does not go to free will most of the time.
Have fun.
..
You can use shortcut keys when accessing choices on your favorite browser.
e.g.,
For choice #1 in scripts
Internet Explorer: Alt+1
Firefox: Alt+Shift+1
Safari: Alt+1
Opera: Shift+Esc, 1
You can logout during the middle of a script and come back later to finish it on another computer.
SUMMARY
Abotar is a free text-based modern human life simulation game on the Web.
Please post your questions and comments in the forum (http://forum.abotar.com).
Alpha tests will probably only include forum users due to a bare-minimum hosting plan, and high preference is given to those who write a comment. Alpha tester selection order is determined from the time of first forum post, and the quantity/quality of posts. If there are not enough posters, potential alpha tester pool will also expand to include lurkers that have set up accounts based on the sign up order - presumably they voted on the polls. The announcement will show up on both the forum and the wiki when each alpha round of tests begins.
Alpha testers will receive a private message on the forum on how to create a game account when the game is ready for them. At least for now, a tester will receive no mail unless the forum account is set up to receive email copies of private messages, or the account holder specifically requested email notification. If you would prefer to receive forum posts by email, you can click “Subscribe forum” at the bottom left corner of each forum.
All alpha comments will be on the public forum, so the lurkers will not be in the dark.
New versions will be released mid-month and at the end of the month, and will be announced here. Releases do not correspond to alpha rounds.
The application is currently running on rapidxen VPS for the alpha, and maybe eventually beta as well. Linode is a top choice for beta and production since it has a good price-memory ratio. prgmr.com is an option as well since 512MB xen is available for about $10 with annual prepay (http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/prgmrcom-6month-128mb-xen-vps/).
Since this personality simulation game is currently in alpha, it may change substantially without warning. If that is a problem, feel free to bookmark this page and check again later. The design notes are public in order to obtain early feedback for a better product.
Subscribe to this feed to receive future blog entries on the simulation.
http://abotar.com/blog/category/simulation/?feed=rss
All contents on this wiki and Web site are copyrighted by abotar.com.
MOTD
January 2009
(01/06/09) tried to fix some exception messages for the experimental Ajax interface
(01/06/09) built a new version of the Ajax library
(01/05/09) tried to fix some JSON encoding problems
(01/04/09) started writing code to determine the closest archetype for unique characters
(01/03/09) added small chance to change aptitude/personality by one percentile for acting out of character
(01/02/09) fixed formatting according to screenplay standards
(01/01/09) looked into control panels like LxAdmin and Webmin
December 2008
(12/31/08) fixed the registration bug on the alpha site
(12/30/08) took a break
(12/29/08) continued tracking webhostingtalk.com for a bonus RAM sale of the 512MB RAM VPS plan at thenynoc.com
(12/28/08) will probably go with DokuWiki for the publicly editable wiki if can disable the display of IP addresses for editors
(12/27/08) took a break since have a ton of things to do before new years day
(12/26/08) evaluated DokuWiki against PmWiki for file-based wikis
(12/25/08) tested DokuWiki to host scripts that are editable by the public
(12/24/08) finished new Ajax event script interface
(12/23/08) spent the day on a side contract to get bootstrap money
(12/22/08) tested T-Mobile G1 to see if Android is a possible future mobile frontend
(12/21/08) tested new Ajax interface successfully on alpha test site
(12/20/08) looked into proxy options to pipe alpha test site page requests to the local development machine instead
(12/19/08) implemented event script buttons
(12/18/08) updated to the latest version of the Ajax library and continued implementing new frontend
(12/17/08) found workaround for getting around some limitations of the security mechanism
(12/16/08) started to implement security mechanism that can secure both regular Web pages and JSON outputs
(12/15/08) continued creation of the new Ajax frontend and the JSON communication with the backend
(12/14/08) fixed various issues on the alpha test site
(12/13/08) wiped characters but accounts should still work (contact to migrate character manually)
(12/13/08) updated Web application and database on the alpha test site
(12/13/08) optimized performance on public test site a little but still using 300+ MB RAM for this 128 MB non-swap memory account
(12/13/08) evaluated sqlite but it may have massive insert performance issues for this Web application
(12/12/08) looked into $5/month 512 MB VPS plan at http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/thenynoc-5-openvz-vps-with-512mb/
(12/12/08) looked into profiling Web application to fit better into the current 128 MB VPS account
(12/12/08) stopped conversion to Ajax client for now due to possible bugs with beta Ajax library
(12/11/08) ran into problems with data communication for Ajax client
(12/10/08) started conversion to Ajax client
(12/09/08) reorganized some wiki pages into sections
(12/08/08) added purchase house script
(12/07/08) added profile picture, tagline, unique archetype/subculture, script text input, occupation/relationship text, and finance/debt
(12/06/08) worked on fixing a problem with text input for event scripts
(12/05/08) implemented nine months delayed event before having a baby
(12/04/08) worked on event handling
(12/03/08) read about some current casual games
(12/02/08) sent private message to all remaining forum accounts with instructions to enter the alpha test
(12/01/08) took a break
November 2008
(11/30/08) continued working on relationship scripts
(11/29/08) worked on relationship scripts
(11/28/08) added new fields to database
(11/27/08) worked on friends script
(11/26/08) added placeholders for fantasy genre, action genre, friends, and family in portal script
(11/25/08) continued creating unit tests for scripts
(11/24/08) continued to clean up scripts
(11/23/08) cleaned up scripts
(11/22/08) continued creating unit tests for scripts
(11/21/08) tried to get JavaScript to throw a stack trace on error
(11/20/08) started using JsUnit for regression testing of scripts
(11/19/08) started evaluation of SmartGWT which was just released
(11/18/08) noted Facebook has a new Verified App Program so one more reason not to put this app on Facebook
(11/17/08) added access keys to events screen
(11/17/08) decided to deploy changes frequently instead of on a two-week cycle during the alpha
(11/17/08) modified character creation to start with 100% morale and 100% health
(11/16/08) added check so that modified stats must be +/-10 or less from archetype
(11/15/08) tested application on the alpha site
(11/14/08) released round one alpha
(11/14/08) found out IP address was reassigned (should have checked email) so can finish up soon
(11/14/08) submitted trouble ticket to fix the Web application account issue
(11/14/08) found Web application host is still unreachable so will finish up after it comes back up
(11/13/08) got everything working, but application host seems very unstable so alpha testers may experience random outage
(11/13/08) got the Web application working, but still need to fix the script directory
(11/13/08) noted that rapidxen seemed flaky last night and today and kept on disconnecting unexpectedly
(11/13/08) installed app server and language and started on data storage (got a little stuck here)
(11/13/08) verified that DNS entries propagated
(11/12/08) started installing software on the provisioned account
(11/12/08) signed up for hosting on rapidxen at Chicago which will be provisioned in 24-48 hours
(11/11/08) changed DNS entries for domain name
(11/11/08) checked http://www.lowendbox.com for budget VPS hosts
(11/11/08) did final preparations for alpha round one release
(11/10/08) upgraded the libraries
(11/09/08) updated undergraduate education code to be more playable
(11/08/08) updated dating chance formula
(11/07/08) decided to sign up for rapidxen application hosting at Chicago on 11/12/08 since no linode coupon yet
(11/06/08) thought about the possibility of adding a primitive multiplayer script in time for round one alpha
(11/05/08) mostly finished streamlining the scripting syntax for choices and fixing existing scripts
(11/04/08) read about human laws of attraction research and similar people apparently make happier couples
(11/04/08) added health and morale in addition to eight core stats as factors affecting roleplay score for each choice
(11/03/08) started streamlining the scripting syntax for choices and fixing existing scripts
(11/02/08) found out that SmartGWT library sample has been released and tried to build it unsuccessfully
(11/01/08) cleaned up code in anticipation of round 1 alpha release
(11/01/08) tried to decide whether to sign up for commercial hosting today or next weekend (25% off sale ends 11/13/08)
WALL
(09/23/08)
It is a Web-based game under development and not yet released. The business logic runs on the server.
The first few bullet points on the wiki are links, and the screenshots should clarify things.
http://wiki.abotar.com/index.php?title=Screenshots
If you have further questions, feel free to ask.