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I didn't get to place any points, actually, or if it did, it never showed up.

The points message is completely irrelevant to you, it just means the code to generate the red points smacked itself in the head.

If however nothing is happening when you click on one of the white squares, then there's a problem.

scrollbar death noted.  (easy one, I have a loop that never ends if the grid size < crosses)

Xepher: What browser/OS/etc. are you using?  I'm not seeing any instant win or non-drawing of the final cross, and the textbox should show atleast a few full lines (though that one may be simple, if you're using Linux, I've seen java use giant fonts on linux).  EDIT -- Is it only a few letters fit in the debug area or it just isn't scrolling?  I just noticed with firefox/linux the text area isn't scrolling like it does under firefox/windows.

griever: that's normal.  My gamestart() routine is just complaining that it didn't get to create all the points it wanted to.  Not sure why you're getting it though, unless you had the gridsize small or a large # of pts/crosses at the time.

I randomly felt like generating some Java experience and threw together a quick game.  Lots of fun learning how screwed up Java is.  Anyway, I'd like to nail down some good constants to use in the program.  So if you have a moment, I've attached some quick and dirty sliders that vary the key parameters of the game, play a few rounds and tell me what values seem easier/harder.

http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/test.html

Comments much appreciated.

****NOTE New code uploaded 7 May.  Look in that little text box and scroll around, if you don't see a lot of lines saying Vert and Horiz you're still running the old version.  Do a search for 'clear java cache'
New version fixes a stupid typo bug in generating the levels and sort-of-maybe generates harder levels.

I can think of two ideas that could mesh well (so that one can be filler for the other).  I have a few bits of interesting knowledge laying around that could be turned into "why xyz is perfectly normal" (or as my economics prof put it, you can look at the news and say "he's full of s***").  I think that could go well mixed with "why both sides of the issue are off the deep end" pieces.

Alternately, there's the normal intro-to-comp style essays or the rambly columns I've done before.

I just want to compile some half way intelligent and/or funny things into a monthly publication.

Well I just happen to half-way intelligent and occasionally claim to be a quarter-way funny and I'm always interested in an excuse to improve my writing.  It might be helpful to know a few things:

* What type of audience are you aiming for? (e.g., which of the following is the best response for "What's up?", A) "Nothing much, you?", B) "The Sky", C) "Away from the center of the Earth", D) "Opposite the gravitational force vector." or would the average reader look up a word like 'pedantic' or just read past it?).
* Are there any topics that you specifically want covered, any that you'd prefer to stay away from?
* How much text do you want?

Give me a moment to come up with a few ideas on what I can pull off.

Don't get me wrong, there's only 365 days in a year, so pretty much every holiday is bound to be on top of another holiday, but the fact that we're still doing on the bunny/eggs/grass stuff is just hilarious.

If we cut out all the chocolate and cut fuzzy critters, all we'd really be celebrating is the end of fish and lasagna Fridays.  Soon enough we'd forget the holiday with no sugary traditions surrounding it (like the various saints days or the 'National' holidays like presidents day).  Don't give in to the chocolate! It's a secret plot to ensure Easter survives beyond a day for low interest car loans and half-off sales!

>> Ok, the cookie thing would be ok, (#2) but what about when the block cookies?
When cookies are disabled, it follows the else-branch from the isset() and chooses a random one from the full list.

>> Also, how does #3 work? I mean, it looks like it may need to make a new file for each and every visitor, or that every visitor shares the same file?
One file.  Visitor 1 gets banner one, Visitor 2 gets banner 2, Visitor 3 gets banner 3, Visitor 4 gets banner 1 and so on.  There's just one current banner, whoever loads the page next gets it.

>>Also, I can't tell from your code where you put the code to say what to display "Banner 2 gets displayed this time" etc...
My code just sets a variable $banner which later in the page is used in the if's to display the text; I think you have the right idea in your code (though I've never used that construction in PHP).  Since cookies have to be set before any output occurs, the banner selection code is at the top of the file and the if's come later where the banner is supposed to go.  The link at the end of this post shows the code I used.

>>How would I make a "next" link in PhP for this banner array?
With HTTP_POST_VARS[] overriding the cookie or random behavior.  If the current banner is #2, The next link would be something like "bannerbox.php?banner=3"  The code would be something like
if isset( HTTP_POST_VARS['banner'] then $banner = HTTP_POST_VARS['banner']
else $banner = COOKIE or random as previously

Demo: http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/bannerbox.php
Code: http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/bannerbox.txt

Is this what you want?

Code Select Expand

if( isset( $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS['BANNER_NUMBER'] ) )
{
$banner = $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS['BANNER_NUMBER'];
$banner = ($banner + 1) % 3;
}
else
{
$banner = rand(0,2);
}
setcookie( 'BANNER_NUMBER', $banner, time()+(60) );
?>When someone first visits the page, they get a rand() banner.  Then each time they reload it after they get the next banner in series (you'd want to change the (60) in the setcookie to something longer, like (60*60*24*30)).
Demo: http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/banners.php

If you want to be really tricky, and randomize it further, you could do something like this:

Code Select Expand

if( isset( $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS['BANNER_ARRAY'] ) ) {
$banners = split( '#', $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS['BANNER_ARRAY'] );
}
else {
$banners = array(0,1,2);
}

if( count($banners) == 1 ) {
$banner = $banners[0];
$newbanners = '0#1#2';
}
else {
shuffle( $banners );
$uns = $banners;
$banner = array_shift($banners);
$newbanners = array_shift($banners);
while( $temp = array_shift($banners) )
{
$newbanners = $newbanners . '#' . $temp;
}
}
setcookie( 'BANNER_ARRAY', $newbanners, time()+(60*60) );What this does, is store a list of undisplayed banners in a cookie like 1#2#3.  On each load, it mixes up the list, pulls of the top one to display now and then stores the remaining choices in a cookie.  So the viewer can't get the first one again until all the others have been viewed, but he won't get them in the same order every time (but you could get a repeat like this: 1,2,3,3,1,2 since after the 1,2,3 they've all been viewed and it could very well start with 3 on the next run through of the list.  With a large list though, this becomes rare, and you could modify the code to exclude the last one when reloading $newbanners with the full list).
Demo: http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/banners2.php

If you don't care about tracking each user individually (or care about those people who turn off cookies), you can do something like this:

Code Select Expand

$f = fopen("bannerlist.txt","r");
$banner = fgets($f);
fclose($f);
$f = fopen("bannerlist.txt","w");
$next = ($banner + 1) % 3;
fputs( $f, $next );
fclose($f);
?>All this does is store the value of what the next banner should be in a text file and does open, read, increment, save on each load.  And you could always combine #2 and #3.

Demo: http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/banners3.php
The text file is: http://omega0.xepher.net/stuff/bannerlist.txt

So, does any of this do what you want?

And does anyone know a simpler way for what I did in #2?  I can't believe that (in a perl-like language no less) there wouldn't be an easy array->string converter.

The vast quantity of webcomics out there still has me beat, I can only recognize two (maybe three) of those.  The one I listened to sounds fine.  I wouldn't have thought 60 seconds would work, but comes off as just enough information to spark interest.  I need to set aside some time to listen & visit.

I guess I'll be the opposing viewpoint.  I don't really care what wikipedia does, especially not in regards to webcomics.  You can always get more reliable information from a more dedicated source.  For example Comixpedia's list (http://www.comixpedia.org/index.php/List_of_Webcomics/), the various webcomic lists (like The Belfry, http://www.belfry.com/comics/) or the voting/ranking resources have more entries with more detail and due to their specialization have better upkeep along with mode effect searches & filtering.

Good old Romans, we could stand to learn a lot from them (why can't we exile former politicians to far off lands?)

I believe this bit of code from the .js performs the magic

Code Select Expand

function getcornboxes()
{
crequest.open('GET', './cornbox.xml',true);
crequest.onreadystatechange = parseInfoC;
crequest.send(null);

}by yanking data in from this file: http://www.cornstalker.com/comics/cornbox/cornbox.xml

Well, there's a number of small errors like:
* You have two HTML tags
* There's some table content in the HEAD and the HEAD isn't closed when the BODY starts
* On line 51 there's an extra quote
* Immediately after that, there's two FONT tags, but only one gets closed
But browsers should be robust enough to ignore those.

The offender is:
When you define the table, you use ALIGN=LEFT causing all content after it to go to the right of the table if possible.  Firefox decides to put it below since there's not enough space on the right & you have a bunch of P's and CENTER's.  IE just pushes the page size beyond the screen.  You can fix this by
* remove ALIGN=LEFT from the TABLE on line 17
* add
after the table on line 136

(Using http://validator.w3.org/ can help find a number of errors, but it also gets anal about stupid things like 'every IMG should have an ALT' just in case someone's out there still using lynx).  You also might find it useful to use an editor with indent and syntax highlighting (I personally use Vim, but that has lots of commands to memorize and requires a flow chart to use).  It's easier to see when something is left unclosed when it syntax highlights normal code as a string, or indents where you don't expect.

Something weird:  I was on the chat and after about an hour, I noticed there were four of me online.
None of them were very talkative.

My personal thought (on any type of game, not just MMO) is this:
"If you can play it with a flow-chart, it's not worth it."
Even linearity isn't terrible (if it's long enough), it's iteration that ruins it.

For example, the strategy of most of these games can be described as
Attack Monster -> Collect Dropped Item -> Repeat Until Inventory Full

The Attack Monster process doesn't change the more you play, you just choose the most effective weapon for the target and go at it.  http://www.progressquest.com/ will play that type of game for you.  It's much more fun to play a game like ADOM where you have to evaluate the pros and cons of your equipment and ammo, then take into account the terrain before you decide even if you'll fight.  

Quests are just
Talk to NPC -> Kill Things -> Complete Quest (with some quests containing multiple instances of this)
And like Xepher said, nothing really happens as a result of completing the quest.
In the RPG enviroment, there's not that much you can do besides 'kill things' but you can at the very least advance a story line (completing a quest causes your PC to filter out any NPC-text relating to it, and new quests become available --even better if you can make the whole world advance) and provide multiple solutions to a quest (kill the rampaging dragon? force it to relocate by blocking the cave entrance? collect something valuable enough to deal with it?)

I don't like dealing with other people.  If you're going to make a game where I have to do so, there had better be a good reason.  There used to be a browser-based game "Archmage: Reincarnation from Hell" in addition to having good strategy elements (there was no simple working strategy) you almost had to form alliances.  Red mages had massive offensive power, but little ability to support their kingdoms economically.  Green mages could provide massive boosts in production, but their military units were lacking.

(Being on the subject of online games, to CMC plug committee from hunting me down: http://cmc.mrx.ca/cmc/page.jsp?pageurl=news.htm)